Mordo's post

aw, i thought it was great

i haven't seen the marketing myself—the only promotion i've seen whatsoever is adam from YMS's 9/10 review and recommendation—so i don't know if the film is trying to be "realistic" so much as it's just trying to be emotionally potent, and i think it succeeds heavily in that regard

even so, i'd still argue that there's a lot of realism to the film, from the script to the performances, but as you pointed out, most people would probably have trouble relating to a couple of "hot shot professional artists" (although, as a wannabe hotshot artist myself, i was able to relate somewhat with the two characters on that basis a tiny bit more than the average bear, i suppose, which did noticeably increase my personal enjoyment)

whatever realism the film does have is only there, imo, to ground the film and prevent the audience from becoming totally alienated—because, like you said, most people will struggle to relate with a couple of snooty career artists

but rather than hamstring these characters by making them more relatable to regular people, the film tries MUCH harder (and successfully, in my opinion) to make them likable—the movie opens with the two describing all the things they love about each other, as we see examples of those behaviors on screen (which, now that i think about it, is kind of a clever take on the age-old "show don't tell" advice often given to novice writers, because the opening scene of this movie opts to show and tell simultaneously—idk, i think that's kinda cool)

to write this scene off as merely listing idiosyncrasies seems odd to me—how do you generally prefer to grow attached to your characters, if not learning about their idiosyncratic personalities? it's not like they're presented as perfect people—their flaws are strewn about and laid bare throughout the entire film

furthermore, you don't think the scene where Charlie finds the divorce papers on the kitchen counter to be a realistic interaction? how Nicole just awkwardly steps in and is like, "yeah sorry," and Charlie gets all suspicious about the pie that her sister had before she fucked everything up, prompting Nicole to have to explain that it was nothing, etc. etc. and in the end, Charlie just looks so fucking bewildered by the whole situation, and he's like "so like... what do I do next?"

or how about the scene, my personal favorite, with the custody evaluation lady, where Charlie's trying to demonstrate the knife trick that his son brought up at dinner, and he's so nervous that he cuts himself? maybe you're not a clumsy fuck like me, but that single scene, i thought, was such a painfully accurate snapshot of two awkward people trying to interact with each other that i bust a gut every time i watch it—especially when he's stumbling around his kitchen, trying to tend to this horrifying wound he has while hiding it from his son

those are just two scenes, but for me, this movie was filled to the brim with moments like that

have you ever done something annoying around your dad, prompting him to just lash out at you? the part where the kid wouldn't get in the car cracks me up—"Henry, get in the fucking car. [beat] I'm sorry, but Jesus, get in the fucking car."

that's real shit

the characters are so likable, you don't know who to root for, because you want BOTH of them to happy—but because they have such strong cases against each other, and because their lawyers are so aggressive, it makes it all the more painful when it all explodes in the argument scene

you criticized the bit where Charlie punches the wall, and i agree somewhat that the punch almost seemed too light and that the crack was added in post or something, but i'm not an expert on blunt force, and i don't know how strong walls typically are, since i've never punched one myself, but i can agree it wasn't the most convincing physical outburst

i suppose you could argue it shows that he's hesitant to do any real damage, but in that case, he probably shouldn't have left the mark at alll, since while it does last, it doesn't really come up again (i don't even think the evaluation lady asks about it, strangely enough)

you also did say the whole scene was entertaining for the wrong reasons, though, and that was the only part you singled out—i'm curious to know what else you thought was wrong with the scene, because i thought it was fantastic through and through, and one of the best singular scenes out of anything i've watched so far

idk, i guess if the movie wasn't for you, that's okay—i just thought it kicked ass enough to respond to some of your points about it

I must be fabulously out of touch with mainstream things since I only know of probably three movies on that list.

American Factory

This is a documentary about Fuyau, a Chinese auto glass company. In 2015, they bought out an old General Motors factory that shut down in 2008, giving hundreds of people new job opportunities, but before too long, the fundamental disparities between Chinese and American work ethics begin to rear their heads.

It's a Netflix original, so if that sounds interesting to you, maybe check it out. It's rather difficult to rate documentaries, so I don't think I'll bother. The bottom line is that it's informative, engaging, and well-presented. What more can I ask for?

It's not an Oscar film but I saw Uncut Gems  on Saturday and what else can I say other than that the Safdie's have usurped Villeneuve as the most compelling up and coming directors in the indie film scene for me right now.

What a spellbinding film. Still undecided as to whether it's better than Good Time (not sure that it is), but bruh, the production and camera work in this film is mwah. Little touches like showing the characters using 2012 (the year the film' set) iPhone and iMessage technology really added to the film's immersion.

My only gripes would probably be the pacing, although I'm maybe a bit too accustomed to Good Time's breakneck pacing and went in with a different expectation. Need to give it a 2nd watch without that mentality.

Also not really on board the hype train for Sandler's performance. He's certainly competent, but I disagree with the calls for his nomination in retrospect.

I feel like giving it a 9/10 just because it has a sick ending, but it's probably closer to an 8/10 realistically.

had the chance to see it in my local theater when it was playing, but i was seeing something else at the time

come back a week later expecting it to still be playing, and of course it wasn't

it was there for like 2 weeks, i was pissed

The Lion King



4/10

Probably deserves lower, but when it comes to rating remakes, I think I have a slightly different philosophy than you might expect. While it's true that everything good about this remake (the story, the characters, the music) is simply part of the groundwork laid out by the original film, they're still in the film—so to give the movie something like a 1/10, in my view, would be to say that the film didn't retain the strong characters (somewhat), wasn't (relatively) faithful to the story, and lacks the amazing score of Hans Zimmer (overrated as he is).

But none of that is true. It has all of these things—and with some state-of-the-art visual effects to boot. Now, I'm not trying to say the movie is good, by any means—I'm giving it a 4/10, for fuck's sake. I just don't believe in giving movies a 1/10 so easily. Scores that low are special to me. To give a movie like this a score like that would be almost to validate it in some way. Giving it a 4/10, on my scale, marks it with a basic "bad movie" status, and allows for it to receive the fate it truly deserves: to be swiftly forgotten.

That being said:

This was the last Disney movie that needed to be remade. Literally every aspect of it is significantly worse than the original. I don't even need to tell you not to watch it at this point, but don't. It is ungood.

I only saw it because it's nominated for one thing—Best Visual Effects—which happens to be the first category I've completed so far. And, if I'm honest, as much as I disliked it, I'm hard-pressed to argue in favor of any of these other nominations.

Avengers: Endgame—Sure, this movie had pretty decent visual effects for a superhero movie... I guess. But absolutely nothing that couldn't be found pretty much anywhere else in the series.

The Irishman—Pretty good aging and de-aging effects, but nothing Oscar-worthy. I think I commented before on how distracting Robert De Niro's bright-ass contact lenses were.

1917—Pretty typical bog-standard war movie effects. Not to knock the film as a whole, of course. I did still enjoy it, but as far as effects go, there really wasn't anything particularly special about it.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker—Again, nothing special. They're the exact kind of effects you'd expect to see in a modern-day space action-adventure flick. Not bad, but nothing that stands out to me as amazing.

Yeah, I don't think I could justify giving the Oscar to anything but The Lion King, as much as it pains me to say it. I wasn't absolutely blown away by its effects, or anything, but objectively speaking, in a vacuum, between these five films, it simply has the best visual effects. I hate that this remake exists as much as anybody else, but not enough to lie to myself about it. We'll see if it stands the test of time, but seeing as they were going for photorealism, it probably won't.

The worst thing about it is that the effects tend to ruin a big part of what made the original so charming—facial anthropomorphization allows for each character's emotions and personality to shine through, and having a more realistic style effectively eliminates that shit. So while the effects are amazing in a vacuum, they actually kind of suck a lot when you put them in context.

If I wanted to be spiteful and pick something else to win, I'd probably go with either Avengers or Star Wars. They both have the same caliber of effects; maybe the effects in Avengers were slightly better, I don't know. It definitely shouldn't go to The Irishman, and it definitely shouldn't go to 1917.

So, there you have my first official prediction. Maybe I'll do it in this format to lock it in:

Best Visual Effects
Prediction: The Lion King
Personal opinion: The Lion King

Toy Story 4

As much as this movie did not need to exist, I still can't say that it wasn't good, even though a great deal of its entertainment value comes from me having known and loved these characters for my whole life. It honestly doesn't have much value beyond that. It's a foregone conclusion that this movie is going to win the Oscar for best animated feature, but I sincerely believe that it doesn't deserve it, and should probably go to I Lost My Body instead.

That said, I'm glad they addressed Bo Peep's absence in Toy Story 3 and made her an actual character, and I'm glad they tried ending it on a perfect note again. I just hope they finally stop now. 6/10

---

Little Women

This movie is nominated for a shit ton of stuff, but don't be fooled into thinking this is a must-see or anything. I think the average movie-goer will probably consider this movie to be extremely boring, and it honestly kind of just is. Based on the Louisa May Alcott book of the same title, this is actually the seventh time this story has been adapted on the big screen, with versions dating back to 19-fucking-17 in the silent era. Needless to say, this is one of the most preeminent American romance stories.

This movie is only okay, though. It's fine. It's a movie. It's well-acted, well-produced, well-scored, and well-everything else, but not to any mind-shattering degree. Of the six awards this film is nominated for, I struggle to find any that I feel it truly deserves, besides maybe costume design. Knowing how important the story is in American literature has me inspired to perhaps start reading the original book, but ultimately, it's a movie that's made for nobody else but its intended audience, of which I am clearly not a part of. 6/10

With this movie, I've completed my second category: Best Original Score.

Alexandre Desplat's music actually stood out to me more than I expected it to for this kind of movie, so I'm glad he was nominated. However, I think I'd rather the Oscar go to Hildur Guðnadóttir. She composed for Joker, which is a movie with music that makes my skin crawl, which is exactly what I like music to do. I wanna feel things, especially if those feelings are unique and difficult to express with other aspects of the film.

I don't feel that the other nominations in this category—Marriage Story, 1917, or Star Wars—have scores that truly feel like they succeed at this seemingly basic task. No disrespect to John Williams, of course—he's still the GOAT—but the man phoned it in for these last three Star Wars movies and everybody knows it. He also has a billion Oscars already, so just give it to the Icelander, please and thank you. She already has a Golden Globe, I believe, so I think that puts her in a good trajectory.

Best Original Score
Prediction: Joker
Personal opinion: Joker

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Rocketman

I love biopics about musicians in particular, because it provides the perfect excuse to turn the movie into a musical—and this one happens to be a lot of fun. You could choose to be cynical and think of this movie merely as the by-the-numbers rockstar tale that it boils down to, but that would require you to ignore all the things that help this movie stand out as a sheer piece of entertainment, from Taron Egerton's amazing performance to all the surreal sequences that make each musical number feel like a trippy (and particularly good) music video.

You also have to respect that it doesn't gloss over any of the details of Elton John's life, in that he is indeed a gay man that did a fuckton of drugs in his day. And yeah, there is gay sex present in the movie, but it doesn't go overboard (and by "overboard," I don't mean to imply that there's an unacceptable amount of gay sex in particular you can have in a movie; I just typically prefer not to have any sex in my movies at all, regardless)—in fact, I was surprised there was so little of it, considering that the movie is rated R and everything. They probably could've went further with it, in all honesty.

Anyway, I had a good time with it, and I'd probably give it a 7/10 or something. I was surprised that it wasn't nominated for more than just its sole nomination—best original song—for "(I'm Gonna) Love Me Again," which isn't an especially great song, in my opinion. Far from the best thing about the movie, but whatever.

Go see this one if you want; it's definitely my favorite one of these three.

Parasite

Palme d'Or recipient, Best Picture nomination, 99% on Rotten Tomatoes. The accolades this movie has received are seemingly endless, and because of that, this was easily my most anticipated movie for this project.. Which is why I'm sad to report that I was actually quite disappointed with it.

In theory, I should probably love any movie that has anti-capitalist sentiments, but as it turns out, I need a lot more from a movie than just having a message that I agree with for me to consider it good, let alone a masterpiece.

Yeah, it's cool that the movie provides some commentary on class structure and how capitalism can break people, and it does so in a very mature and nuanced fashion that doesn't just boil down to "rich people bad" (even though I probably would've been satisfied with just that), because the poor family in this film are presented as an utterly execrable group of people, which actually made it quite difficult for me to sympathize with them. Especially considering that they're all drunks.

But I do need more from movies than this, because the biggest problem I have with the way the characters are written is that I don't actually like any of them. As a result, I don't really care about any of them, either, because they all just annoy me. I can't like the Kims, because they're bastards for trying to usurp another family's house. I can't like the boy, because he's obsessed with kissing up on some underage girl. I can't like the Parks, because they're stupid rich fucks. I don't have anyone to care about in this movie.

Now, you don't have to like the characters in a movie for it to be good, necessarily—especially when that's part of the point of the story. Okay, I can accept that. What else does the movie offer, then?

Good performances? Yeah, I suppose it does. Were they amazing, though? I don't think so. There's that one part where the Kim girl is drunk, and she sounds convincingly inebriated. It made me dislike her character more, because I fucking hate drunk people, but sure, it was a great little performance. That was the only moment that stood out to me.

Does it have a good plot? Sure. It's definitely original, too. I don't think many movies have been made with this concept before, and it certainly felt fresh in that regard. But being fresh doesn't mean it was great, though. It wasn't very engaging on a moment-to-moment basis, and it had a tendency to drag at points. Which is very strange, because people have been saying that the pacing is one of the movie's strong points, whereas I didn't get that impression at all.

Was it funny? Well, it never made me laugh. Not even once. Not even internally. Is it just some cultural thing that I'm not privy to? If so, my brain was still able to recognize a good number of jokes. It's just that none of them were that funny, which is kind of a problem when the movie's supposed to be a black comedy.

Was it thrilling? No, and for a lot of reasons, namely that it's too predictable. Any time there's a scene that makes you go, "Uh-oh! They're really in for it now!" always ends in some uninspired fashion, and there's a number of dumb cliches at play here, too. Like the scene where the boy is hiding under the girl's bed, but the dog sees him. And of course, she gets distracted just a moment away from looking under the bed herself.

Then there's the part where the Kims are down in the secret basement, eavesdropping behind the wall of the staircase they're hiding on, when suddenly they just fucking trip down and reveal themselves. If this never happened, the rest of the movie wouldn't have happened either. It was really stupid, and that's why the movie isn't very thrilling. It just has all these cliche scenes where you either know exactly what's going to happen every time, or something incredibly fucking stupid happens, which makes them tedious to watch. It's the exact opposite of thrilling.

The score was passable but nothing extraordinary. The cinematography was good, but nothing special. Everyone on set apparently did their job well, but for whatever reason, the movie just didn't click with me.

There's so many stupid scenes, like that goddam morse code scene at the end, or this uncomfortably long and awkward-ass moment where the Parks are lying on the couch, and they just start groping each other while their little boy is outside in a tent. They never have sex; it's just a long groping scene where we have to endure them feeling each other up for what felt like 5 minutes (it definitely wasn't actually that long, though). I fucking hate scenes like this. Why is it necessary? Why do I need to see it? Take it out, and it instantly becomes a better movie.

I don't know. I wish I could get behind everyone else and agree that this movie's some kind of masterpiece, but I just wasn't feeling it at all. I'm open to giving it another viewing at some point, but I'm not terribly excited about the prospect of doing so.

I'm genuinely feeling like a 5/10 on this one. Really just don't get the hype, and I'm extremely bummed about that, because as I was saying, I never want to say that I didn't like a movie that critiques capitalism, or has anything to say about the class struggle. On one hand, I'm delighted that this movie's getting more people interested in foreign cinema, but on the other, I just wish it could've been a more engaging movie. I wanted to stan for a foreign film at the Oscars this year, but I genuinely can't do that, because it's way too difficult for me to lie to myself and say I loved it like everyone else did.

It wouldn't be the first time I went against the grain, but it's the first time in a long time that I actually felt bad about doing so. I seriously wanted to like this one SO much, and I just didn't.

That said, it seems that my time to watch the rest of these movies has run out. I saw a good number of them, and I might try to squeeze in a couple more at the last minute, but I'll have to start thinking about the rest of my predictions, which I'll try to post later.

Rocketman could've gotten nominated for more shit, honestly. No best actor nod for Tom Egerton? Shame.

Brad Pitt? Really?

He was playing a cool character but a better performance than Pesci? Nah.

yeah, especially when the guy's almost dead and is probably never acting again

that frozen 2 song performance was nice

having the foreign language singers come in was a nice touch

these women are not funny

1917 did not deserve best visual effects at all wtf

at least it didn't go to a bad movie

i'm gonna go ahead and take credit for parasite's win

had i enjoyed it as much as i thought i would have, it almost certainly would've lost

We must protect Bong Joon Ho's wholesomeness.

https://m.imgur.com/oPdvV3a

aaaaand this is what i watch the oscars for

im curious, what's a 10/10 movie to you?

Fight Club
Requiem for a Dream
Goodfellas
The Godfather

a common theme you can draw from these four movies (apart from them all being these dark and cynical examinations of the seedier and less pleasant aspects of humanity) is that they're all extremely popular and easy for normies to get into, but not at the expense of the filmmaking, which is (imo) as good as you could possibly make a movie in virtually every facet, or at least the ones that i happen to care about

but more than just being masterfully crafted films, these are movies that had me in awe the first time i saw them, and the emotions i was made to feel during each lingered with me for days and days after

Fight Club in particular is my all-time favorite, and it's the first movie i saw that got me interested in film as an art form rather than just something to pass the time with

a lot of film nerds will give me shit for considering Fight Club as my favorite, just because it's kind of the stereotypical "baby's first mindfuck" kind of movie, but i genuinely can't help it—every aspect of this movie, from the extremely stylish cinematography, to the endlessly cool and quotable dialogue, to the gritty and badass soundtrack, and to the punk rock ethos and anti-consumerist themes, it all resonates with me to a level where i feel like it was made just for me

Goodfellas is a 10/10 in the most bread-and-butter way possible—it didn't fuck my brain, or anything, but it's one of the first movies i ever saw that made me think, "damn, i didn't even know it was possible to make a movie this good"—and i attribute that primarily to how successfully immersive it is, and how ceaselessly engaging the story is from a moment-to-moment basis—there's not a single scene in this movie where some cool shit isn't happening, even if that "cool shit" is a memorable line of dialogue, or even just a look on somebody's face

i'm making myself wanna watch all these again jesus christ

Requiem for a Dream is probably the best edited movie of all time—so fucking unique, so fucking stylish, but unpretentiously so, and not in any way that doesn't feel like it's actually contributing to the experience. given that it's about the horrors and destructive powers of addiction, and how weak and stupid human beings can be in their pursuit of happiness, it's pretty much up my alley, and the nature of the plot also tends to make it one of the most crushingly depressing movies you could ever see, which is my fetish. there's just no other movie like it

The Godfather is The Godfather, enough said really—if Citizen Kane is the best movie of the 20th century's first half, then The Godfather is probably the best of the second half, and i prefer The Godfather by an order of magnitude.

similar to Goodfellas, it's really just a movie that does everything that a great movie is supposed to do, and i just think it's one of the best stories ever put to screen, with some of the coolest characters ever written, played by the most world-class actors the industry ever knew at the time. it's an undeniable movie that you just kinda have to respect, even if you can't get into it

the closest a modern movie has come to getting my 5th 10/10 is probably Gone Girl from 2014, which is not to say that i think modern movies suck or anything—i just typically prefer to watch older movies, because there's a lot of great classics that i still need to catch up on, and it's relatively cheap and easy to watch old movies

modern movies are expensive as fuck for someone like me who's not okay with piracy, which makes them pretty tough to keep up with, so i'm sure there's still loads of 10/10s out there, waiting for me to discover them, and i'm very excited to go out and find them, whenever it is that i do

so, what are your 10/10s