Awards Season 2017

[Brian C]

If you’re the kind of person who finds McCrutchy’s reasoning compelling, though, you can use it to explain anything away. It was well-reviewed? Well sure, critics are afraid to hate on the black movie. It was a box-office hit? Of course, all those liberal do-gooders championing BLM, their pet cause. It never ends - “identity politics” literally explains everything.

[wattsup32]

Get Out was one of the best reviewed movies of the year. To imply its in there to make up quotas is bull.

If you believe Rotten Tomatoes, it's the third best reviewed film of all-time.

[MichaelB]

If you’re the kind of person who finds McCrutchy’s reasoning compelling, though, you can use it to explain anything away. It was well-reviewed? Well sure, critics are afraid to hate on the black movie. It was a box-office hit? Of course, all those liberal do-gooders championing BLM, their pet cause. It never ends - “identity politics” literally explains everything.

It’s well known that $200 million (or whatever) box-office takes can always be attributed more or less exclusively to liberal do-gooders with an underlying agenda.

[davoarid]

I am deliriously happy Agnes Varda got nominated (even though I haven’t seen “Faces Places” yet). That’s awesome. She’s been making amazing films for 60 years!

Also pleased they were able to look past the terrible movie to recognize the great performance Denzel gave in “Roman J Israel, Esq.” I honestly think it’s the best he’s ever been.

I had a boatload of longshots I was hoping might steal a nomination somewhere—not to win, but just cuz I wanted them to get invited—but they all got shut out, as I kinda figured. So I’m gonna take a shot of whiskey for the Safdie brothers, Holly Hunter, Rian Johnson, Hugh Grant for “Paddington 2”, Daniel Craig for “Logan Lucky”, Chad Stahelski, and the lovely Rebecca Hall for the execrable “Professor Marston” biopic.

Oh, and the complete snubbing of Haneke’s “Happy End” was a bit of a WTF. But he got his already so I’ll live.

[McCrutchy]

I'm glad Get Out got nominated not just because its a great deal of fun and it handled its politics with a fair degree of wit, but also because horror films so often get overlooked during awards season, especially when they aren't star driven, big budget films like The Exorcist or Silence of the Lambs. I doubt it will win anything though.

I just thought its blending of comedy and thriller (I think it's more of a Silence of the Lambs-type "horror" than what I would consider "horror") was off-balance. It kind of works, and the performances are fun, but I felt the twist was not as horrific as it should have been, and I thought that the comic relief best friend character was right out of a Wayans Brothers film, and didn't really fit.

If people wanted a horror film to win something, the academy could have nominated It for something, although unfortunately, I didn't find much about that film to be award worthy. Maybe the make-up, although even there, the digital eye effects on Pennywise were less than great.

[mfunk9786]

Oh, and the complete snubbing of Haneke’s “Happy End” was a bit of a WTF. But he got his already so I’ll live.

A lot of people hate this Haneke. I haven't seen it yet so can't speculate further, but if anything was going to topple him from his unexpected perch as Oscar shoo-in, Happy End seems to have been it

[knives]

If you’re the kind of person who finds McCrutchy’s reasoning compelling, though, you can use it to explain anything away. It was well-reviewed? Well sure, critics are afraid to hate on the black movie. It was a box-office hit? Of course, all those liberal do-gooders championing BLM, their pet cause. It never ends - “identity politics” literally explains everything.

And in response all you have to do is point out all of the similar films that didn't succeed on anywhere on the same level. Even if you just look at other well liked films such as Girls Trip. Even in Foreign Film the one African choice didn't get in.

[MichaelB]

What has the film’s perceived genre got to do with anything?

[mfunk9786]

I'm glad Get Out got nominated not just because its a great deal of fun and it handled its politics with a fair degree of wit, but also because horror films so often get overlooked during awards season, especially when they aren't star driven, big budget films like The Exorcist or Silence of the Lambs. I doubt it will win anything though.

I just thought its blending of comedy and thriller (I think it's more of a Silence of the Lambs-type "horror" than what I would consider "horror") was off-balance. It kind of works, and the performances are fun, but I felt the twist was not as horrific as it should have been, and I thought that the comic relief best friend character was right out of a Wayans Brothers film, and didn't really fit.

If people wanted a horror film to win something, the academy could have nominated It for something, although unfortunately, I didn't find much about that film to be award worthy. Maybe the make-up, although even there, the digital eye effects on Pennywise were less than great.

Your bias is showing when you bend over backwards to say that a film you don't consider worthy of award consideration should have been nominated for something in order to exclude Get Out altogether, and it makes the argument incredibly weak. Again, we get it. I'm sorry that there are some diverse nominees in the place of something you would have preferred, but luckily it isn't the McCrutchy awards

[hearthesilence]

What stood out to me was Kobe Bryant, given the talk of sexual harassment/abuse. His case, unlike many others who have been named - actuality has horrific evidence/half confession and settlement weeks before trial. But whatever, he bought his wife a really big ring.

I had to do a double-take on that - Kobe Bryant, an Oscar nominee? Now MJ's got to make another movie, and it better not be another Space Jam...

[thirtyframesasecond]

Poor Franco

Bit UK centric but The Silent Child, in the best short, stars and is directed by two alumni from terrible British teen soap Hollyoaks!

[davoarid]

Also, please don’t hit me, but I actually really really really liked “The Boss Baby” and am glad its innovation will be recognized.

Now I know it’s based on literally one joke (“What if the baby was LITERALLY the boss of a family?”) but dammit it was very thoughtful, and it juggled animation styles in a thematically appropriate way (thanks to it telling most of the story from the POV of a very imaginative 7-year-old.)

To be fair, I saw this movie while recovering from a particularly painful surgery and was hopped up on copious quantities of painkillers. But I know what I saw—and today I’ve receive confirmation that it was Oscar-quality!

[mfunk9786]

To be fair, I saw this movie while recovering from a particularly painful surgery and was hopped up on copious quantities of painkillers. But I know what I saw

Put this on the DVD box!

[davoarid]

To be fair, I saw this movie while recovering from a particularly painful surgery and was hopped up on copious quantities of painkillers. But I know what I saw

Put this on the DVD box!

Right next to “Oscar nominee”!

[knives]

No need to apologize. I've heard some pretty good things about it. Though like I said earlier I was hoping for a Capt. Underpants nom. That film has a nice midperiod Nickelodeon flavor going for it ala Kablam!.

[mfunk9786]

I don't doubt that Boss Baby got in here on its own merits, but I have to admit if I was tabulating nominations in this day and age and they naturally came out with something called Captain Underpants (which statistically is actually pretty likely to happen most of the time), I'd be tempted to fudge the numbers to avoid someone having to say Captain Underpants on the telecast.

[matrixschmatrix]

I haven't seen The Breadwinner, though I meant to- the director worked on Secret of Kells, which is one of the best animated movies of its decade- but assume Academy voters also didn't, I'd assume this is a shoo in for Coco, which was lovely and made me cry in public. So, I'm ok with that.

[mfunk9786]

Just realizing now that Phantom Thread didn't get a Screenplay nomination which makes the Director thing even weirder!

One more fun fact about Best Director - Paul Thomas Anderson is actually the only one of the five nominees that's been nominated in the category before this year.

[swo17]

I don't doubt that Boss Baby got in here on its own merits, but I have to admit if I was tabulating nominations in this day and age and they naturally came out with something called Captain Underpants (which statistically is actually pretty likely to happen most of the time), I'd be tempted to fudge the numbers to avoid someone having to say Captain Underpants on the telecast.

If 70% of movies were called Captain Underpants I would agree with that.

[The Narrator Returns]

I feel like we're all burying the lede here, which is Academy Award-nominee Sufjan Stevens.

[Lost Highway]

Also, please don’t hit me, but I actually really really really liked “The Boss Baby” and am glad its innovation will be recognized.

Now I know it’s based on literally one joke (“What if the baby was LITERALLY the boss of a family?”) but dammit it was very thoughtful, and it juggled animation styles in a thematically appropriate way (thanks to it telling most of the story from the POV of a very imaginative 7-year-old.)

To be fair, I saw this movie while recovering from a particularly painful surgery and was hopped up on copious quantities of painkillers. But I know what I saw—and today I’ve receive confirmation that it was Oscar-quality!

All this proves to me is that it was a poor year for animated feature films.

[mfunk9786]

I feel like we're all burying the lede here, which is Academy Award-nominee Sufjan Stevens.

I'd be a lot more exciting if it were for the Tonya Harding song (in Eb major, because I'm not a monster)

[knives]

I haven't seen The Breadwinner, though I meant to- the director worked on Secret of Kells, which is one of the best animated movies of its decade- but assume Academy voters also didn't, I'd assume this is a shoo in for Coco, which was lovely and made me cry in public. So, I'm ok with that.

I imagine this will wind up being my favorite in the category, but that doesn't lessen how good the nominees are this year for the category (which I will childishly admit is my favorite).

[Brian C]

I thought The Breadwinner was very good and I'm happy to see it nominated. I liked Coco better, but two worthy films in the Animated category is usually at least one more than normal (I hypocritically say even though I rarely see more than one or two of the nominees).

I'll second davoarid's praise for Denzel Washington's nomination, also, and I'm not usually a fan. I liked the movie more than he did, but I agree that it's up there with the best work that Washington's ever done.

[knives]

Last year actually had four really good nominees (the only blah film was the winner). 2013 was probably the last year without at least three good films and 2010 with only one (though only three films were nominated that year).