re: My obligatory Oscar rant

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It paid homage to another film where a fire extinguisher was used to project that character through space

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Which movie?

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Which movie?

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I managed to see about 5 of the Best Picture nominees.

Her
Gravity
Captain Phillips
American Hustle
Dallas Buyers Club

Out of those I thought Gravity deserved best picture, was it the best picture? No, I don't think so. However I personally felt like after viewing Gravity, I was not watching a film but experiencing an event. It was a film experience I had not had in very long time. This didn't feel like the one man show films like Cast Away or 128 Hours (although those are great films in their own right) I thought that the Academy might recognize this type of film experience and award Best Picture to Gravity based on that.


In my opinion.

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I have a toddler, so I haven't seen a thing this year (working my way through Netflix -- favorite movie last year that I saw so far is Lovelace or Upstream Color, neither nominated). But I think the win for 12 Years a Slave is fortunate because it spares some movie from being Shakespeare in Love'd, when we all dog a pretty good movie because it won an Oscar. Same thing with Juno. It's a fun movie that now gets hated on because of the Oscar. It's happening to Argo now.

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That poor movie. Some of us will defend it.

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The best thing to happen to a lot of good movies is to NOT win the Oscar. It's better for an epic to win, as that seems "right". Without having seen either, both Gravity and 12 Years would seem like good winners, though I'd be wary of voting for a technical film... that tends to bite you in the arse looking backwards.

And there's no way this year's winner can be as crappy as The Artist. Or God forbid, Crash.

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Exactly. We just had a lot of good films this year. 12 Years a Slave was really good. For different reasons than Gravity. And that's fine.

Was anything TRULY great? Not so sure. Yet. Determining greatness usually requires some distance.

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That poor movie. Some of us will defend it.

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I actually like the movie a lot. Watch it about once a year.

I bet half the people who hate on it, never watched it.

SPR is only Oscar worthy for the opening scene which did a good job of conveying the horrors of D-Day.

My bold Oscar prediction: Next year the OP will issue another heartfelt missive how the Academy didn't pick his favorite nominee (even though he predicted it would happen.)













OP, just messing with ya. I thought 12 Years was good, not great.

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How many movies about/depicted slavery have there been? At least 6:

GWTW
Amistad
Roots
Glory
Django Unchanined
Uncle Tom's Cabin (yes, it was made into a movie)

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OK, full stop. One, Roots isn't a movie, it's a TV show. We're down to 5. Glory is a war film, not a slavery movie. At no point does it depict slavery, it depicts freedmen. We're down to 4. Uncle Tom's Cabin is a movie so obscure I'd bet none of us knew it was a movie, not the book. GWTW isn't a slavery movie, it's a movie that proclaims the Antebellum south as a positive good and perpetuates the myth of the "happy slave".

So... spanning the entire history of movies, you were able to come up with 3 examples, and one doesn't actually depict slavery either (I'll grant Amistad is about slavery, but they are never actually sold into slavery -- it's a courtroom drama). Django Unchained makes no pretenses of realism either, but we'll grant that.

So even in your list of the wealth of slavery movies, we're really back to there only being one good movie about the experience of slavery. It's hardly well-trod ground. None of the other movies you list are actually "slavery movies" from the POV of the slaves. Maybe Amistad.

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I agree with the OP. I don't understand how the Academy can award 7 Oscars to Gravity and not give it Best Picture. It was only the 25th film to win 7 or more Oscars and only the second to win that many and NOT win BP (Cabaret--8). So most of the parts are prizeworthy, but not the whole?

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It's because it won the technical awards and there are more technical awards. Of the "major" awards, Gravity was largely shut out. It did not win for Screenplay, Actor, Actress, or either Supporting category. It did win for Director. It's not really that hard to logically figure out how Gravity won a bunch of awards and not Best Picture. Like I said, I haven't even seen it and I can figure out -- I'm assuming it's a technical marvel. It was honored accordingly.

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So even in your list of the wealth of slavery movies, we're really back to there only being one good movie about the experience of slavery. It's hardly well-trod ground. None of the other movies you list are actually "slavery movies" from the POV of the slaves. Maybe Amistad.

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Also note that it took a British director, two British actors, and a Kenyan actress to bring the film to life. Like it or not, American slavery remains a very touchy topic even today in America, so the audience and the people producing/starring in the film will approach it with caution, which explains why so few truly great movies about slavery have been made.

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Roots isn't a movie

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Doesn't matter--the whole point was that the subject matter hasn't been treated, when, in reality, it has.

Amistad depicts the horror and brutality about the slave trade--a film by, guess who, Speilberg, which further proves my point that McQueen is riffing on a style of filmmaking introduced and perfected by Speilberg.

I left out Beloved--which tells the story of a woman who murders her child to keep her out of, you guessed it, slavery.

This subject has been treated from multiple perspectives and treated directly through film before.

A technical Oscar is still an Oscar. I'll point out that Gravity went up against 12 Years head to head in three categories and it won 2 out of 3. Cinematography, Directing, Editing, and Score are not considered "technical" categories--all wins by Gravity. (Editing and Picture go hand-in-hand quite often, btw.)

12 Years won only 3 out of its 9 nominations--so the Academy felt that in 6 categories, other films/performances were artistically/technically better (Director, Actor, Supporting Actor, Prod Design, Costume Design, Editing)--and failed to capture a Cinematography nomination. That's a paltry record and opens the door to question the Academy's overall affection for the film.

12 Years got its arse handed to it last night--and not just by Gravity.