Amph 2018 Oscars

I was listening to some of my favorite movie pundits on YouTube, and some feel that Jessica Chastain was definitely snubbed for a nomination as her performance in Molly's Game. I'll have to take their word for it. Additionally, some of the pundits felt that Christopher Plummer shouldn't have been nominated and Patrick Stewart should have. However, it makes me wonder, if Spacey wasn't a monster or wasn't exposed as such, would have have gotten the nomination. I seem to remember he was creating some buzz for his performance.

I did not notice that Rachel Morrison received a nomination for cinematography for "Mudbound." I don't know how I missed this. It's great that there's finally a woman to receive this nomination. Moreover, that another streaming service is getting Oscar recognition, after the Cannes Film Festival turned up its nose against Netflix in 2017. Knowing that Morrison is a nominated cinematographer, makes me more excited about seeing Black Panther.

 

Stewart is great, Plummer is great. The supporting actor category is almost a bit of a jumble of general awesomeness. Get to go wackier when a support. (Although considering how much of the plot revolves around the elder Getty I wonder how debatable it is that it's supporting. Xaver is definitely supporting in Logan)

 

There were two pleasant surprises in the screenplay categories: Logan in Best Adapted & The Big Sick in Best Original. Those are the two biggest surprises for me, particularly the Logan appearance. Nominations aren't bad all the way around.

I guess, if I was to have my druthers on the top five, I'd go with:

Best Picture: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Best Director: Guillermo Del Toro
Best Actor: Timothee Chalamet (seeing Phantom Thread this week, so this may change)
Best Actress: Frances McDormand
Best Supporting Actor: Sam Rockwell
Best Supporting Actress: Allison Janney

The Best Actress category is particularly great this year, probably the most consistently brilliant of those six. I haven't seen The Post yet, but I would say all four of the other performances are absolutely Oscar worthy. Much as I'd pick McDormand as the best of them, I would also be very happy with a win for Ronan or Robbie, a couple of young actresses who have recently really knocked it out of the park, or Hawkins, a stalwart character actress who probably could have or should have won an Oscar numerous times before this, if the Oscars were fair. I haven't seen The Post, but honestly, Streep has enough Oscars.

EDIT: I guess the biggest disappointment for me is the lack of love for Blade Runner 2049, which should definitely be in Best Picture and Best Director. And I would have LOVED to see Sylvia Hoeks get a Best Supporting Actress nomination; she was FEROCIOUS in that movie.

 

I wonder why James Franco didn't get nominated.

Also, what is the status on him? Has he been ousted from Hollywood like the others, or is he exempt? It seems like he is in a limbo.

 

I think it's partly wait-and-see-- if more or worse things come out. But I think it's also that they're realizing they can't just blacklist a few guys and call it a day. While it's easy enough to declare the Weinsteins and Spaceys of the world outright monsters, behavior of the Francos and especially the Ansaris is too endemic to the industry and our culture to be able to cut them out like a tumor. It's not something that can be blamed solely on individuals.

 

Surely Aziz won't be blacklisted. On the woman's own account the moment she verbalized she was uncomfortable he suggested they hang out clothed.

Like I'm sorry it was a bad date, but there is no way what he did was sexual assault.


That's my take anyway, does anyone disagree?

 

I did not say he should be blacklisted or that what he did was sexual assault.

 

I'm not saying you did, I'm just bringing it up.

I guess this is the wrong thread for it, but I'm just curious because the judgement fell so quickly for so many men in Hollywood and now it is seeming slow down finally. That or these two guys have found the ambiguous line of what may or may not be sexual assault.

 

I get why everyone is reading it as political and maybe it was, but honestly, he was good, but not really one of the five best of the year. Not really sure any of the current nominees deserve to get kicked to make room for him.

 

I thought Daniel Kaluuya was great, but I'd swap
him out for Franco. He made a character that you could ridicule and also feel for in a personal way. I wanted to laugh and cry in the same breath at certain points of that movie.

I heard that the voting polls for best actor were closed before Franco's allegations hit twitter. So I doubt it was a political thing.

 

No way I'd swap out Kaluuya for Franco. He was phenomenal in Get Out and I was extremely pleasantly surprised to see him get a nomination. But I did think Franco was magnificently entertaining in the Disaster Artist, with a spot-on interpretation of an over the top individual that reminded me of Christian Bale's Oscar winning turn in The Fighter. Although I didn't see Roman J. Israel, based on the trailers and the lukewarm reception that movie got, I'd probably swap Denzel for Franco.

 

Anyone plan on creating a guessing game for this Sunday?

 

Not really because the only ones I saw were Dunkirk, Get Out and The Post. I wanted to go see The Darkest Hour but I got too busy while the others mostly did not interest me except Phantom Thread which I must admit the only reason I want to see is because it’s Daniel-Day Lewis swan song.

I do think the Academy is trivializing itself some with having a lot of “Oscar bait” flips actually be the nominees. They need to start picking more movies that do well at the box office in order to be more relevant. Get Out and Dunkirk were both in the Top 15 domestically for 2017 but everyone else was way down the pecking order. It is no fluke that two of the better viewed Oscars in the past 20 years was 1998 and 2004 when Titanic and Return of the King won. Both of those movies were obviously monster hits therefore a lot more people watch because of it.

 

In my heart, the best movie of 2017 was definitely Lego Batman.

 

@TiniTinyTony

I LEGO Batman that with my wife and my boys during a Saturday manatee while tons of other families. The people laughing the hardest was myself and some other dads. Same thing happened during the LEGO movie as well. Nearly fell out of my seat with that.

 

It would be something if by the end of the show it could be said, "Oscar winner, The Baby Boss."

 

I don't see how they can top last year's show .

well unless they give Harvey Weinstein a lifetime achievement award or something .

 

Say what???

 

The Aziz case was a bit of a turning point ( or at least a pause ) where a lot of people did say "Well hang on now , these matters aren't all the same " .

.

 

Saw Phantom Thread, which is the last of the Best Picture nominees to view. Not a huge fan, rank it at the bottom just above Call Me By Your Name. Phantom Thread is pretty but ponderous. And while Daniel Day Lewis is good, I'm always untrustworthy of best actor nominees wherein one of them plays sickly for the most part. Still it's fun to see like in Beguiled that poison mushrooms play a plot point which is fun! But PT and CMBYN are my least favourites so they'll probably win :/

got in 3 of the 5 best documentary films as well. Strong Island is a moving look at a miscarriage of justice (takes a bit to get rolling, though), Last Men in Alepo is a pretty rough sit, whole lotta corpses. But a definite "You are there" immediacy and a chilling final shot. (Also there's kind of a darkly funny bit where they're calling across to their buddy who is sitting on a bombed out building and the entire side of it collapses).

Icarus so far is my personal frontrunner. It's downright nuts cuz the documentarian guy actually tried to cheat at blood doping in sports and just happened to fall into a giant conspiracy with the main guy who worked on using performance enhancing drugs with the Russian team, and they get really into how they swapped and changed samples to cheat at the Olympics. It's kind of fascinating cuz it's about 30 minutes of a doc about something admittedly kind of dumb (guy deliberately cheating) then completely swerves into a worldwide conspiracy with life or death stakes at the highest levels of Russian power. Great watch!

Going to check out Abacus: Small Enough to Fail sometime this weekend. don't think I'll be able to get in Faces Places because I can't find the damn movie anywhere. But, yeah, go Icarus!

 

I’ll try to watch Coco, The Shape of Water and Darkest Hour before the ceremony. But as of now, Dunkirk is easily my top choice for best picture, and Margot Robbie is my choice for best actress. I’d also like to add that Sam Rockwell deserves best supporting actor, but I wouldn’t be dissapointed if Woody Harrelson got it.

 

I keep wanting a sci-fi movie to win Best Picture before I die and Shape of Water has been called a Front runner (which I am very okay with) but I find it difficult to classify is as a sci-fi movie. More fantasy or horror than anything. And romance. with a fishman. But, yeah, fantasy. But close to sci-fi, I guess!

 

Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway Will Present Best Picture at Oscars 2018