Movie Talk

drummerboy said:

Well, my definition of mainstream has little (directly) to do with number of theaters or total gross.

To me mainstream is some conglomeration of the following:

• If you see it reviewed by most of the major papers like WAPO,NYT,  LAT, whatever the hell is in Chicago, Boston Globe, Dallas Trib, Houston Whatever, Miami Herald, Houston Chronicle, etc
• it can be seen at your local googleplex or your town's main theater
• star filled cast
• other things

If you have to dig to find a review (admittedly not hard these days) and the only theater it's showing in is the Angelika, then not so mainstream.

Most of the movies on the list fit into my definition, I believe.  Amazing Grace, for example, was very widely reviewed and not too hard to find a showing of. Just Mercy, which was just released (and hence has low numbers), has a star-filled cast. Parasite is... well it's Parasite, one of the best reviewed movies of the year.  And so on.

BTW, your definition skips over streaming-only movies.

“Teeming crowds of mainstream Americans” stream movies, too; my definition was not meant to exclude them.

It’s a big country out there, full of people who never read movie reviews in a major newspaper before choosing what to see at the multiplex or to stream. What your “pretty mainstream” label for much of Obama’s list does, in my opinion, is discount what the mainstream audience really is (and, by extension, who mainstream Americans are). Neither that dismissal nor your definition surprises me, but, yes, our views of the mainstream differ.

Thanks for answering.

drummerboy said:

• it can be seen at your local googleplex or your town's main theater

A case in point: There are about 5,500 movie theaters in the United States. If Parasite played in only 650, or one out of every eight, there must have been large swaths of America where it wasn’t playing in any local theater.

nan said:

I saw "Knives Out" tonight and it was funny and enjoyable, including class warfare, which is a big plus for me.  Great cast, including Jamie Lee Curtis, Daniel Craig, Toni Collette, Don Johnson, Christopher Plumber, and more.  

 Every so often I agree with nan

DaveSchmidt said:

drummerboy said:

• it can be seen at your local googleplex or your town's main theater

A case in point: There are about 5,500 movie theaters in the United States. If Parasite played in only 650, or one out of every eight, there must have been large swaths of America where it wasn’t playing in any local theater.

yeah, but those large swaths are probably not where many people live. Those 650 theaters probably cover a large bulk of the population.

unfortunately, in regards to theaters, we're both kinda talking out of our a$$es, since neither of us have the detailed data need to make our cases. 

a good twitter thread for you Scorsese fans

What are the funniest moments in Scorsese movies? I keep thinking about De Niro, in “The Irishman,” trying to figure out whether the hand-off guy’s ears are big enough to be the “guy with big ears” he was told to look for, followed by the guy recounting his surgery.

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) December 31, 2019

Smedley said:

What’s your favorite movie that’s not very well known?

Mine is Love and Death on Long Island, a quirky little 90s indie flick. John Hurt is awesome.

 Harold & Maude!  Can watch over and over again.

meanwhile, who knew Terry Gilliam was such an a-hole?

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/terry-gilliam-interview-harvey-weinstein-victims-metoo-race-a9269136.html

You know, The Poseidon Adventure is not a bad movie. Pretty entertaining. I'd forgotten that Gene Hackman was in it. Not his meatiest role, but he really grounds the whole movie.

The Two Popes was great!  

I had forgotten that the Poseidon was grounded.

It was by the time the awful sequel happened.

Loved Knives Out.

Just saw Parasite. Man, that is one wild and weird movie.

bub said:

The post about Cazale prompts me to mention the 10 year run of Walter Matthau from 66 to 76. Great work, including a number of quite earthy, gritty and/or suspenseful movies. It’s easy to forget he did that kind of stuff if your knowledge of him is from the mostly forgettable saccharine movies he did in later decades.

I don't know.  I think at least half of the movies you mentioned as Matthau's legacy from his early career are also mostly forgettable.  

But Grumpy old Men and it's sequel, I'm Not Rappaport, and Odd Couple 2 were pretty good movies.  Yeah not gritty, but well written, mostly comedies that worked.  

It's a tried and true formula in Hollywood.  Write comedies needing older actors and find the right people to play the roles, who may not have been comedic actors before, even though Matthau had experience in the genre.  Airplane was the prototype for this.  

Just a head up on a few Oscar nominees that are streaming On Netflix

The obvious ones are The Irishman, Marriage Story and The Two Popes.  

Documentaries: The Edge of Democracy & American Factory. 

For Sama is streaming on PBS here: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/for-sama/

Best Animated Features: I Lost My Body & Klaus.  Missing Link is on Hulu 

Here are the major Oscar nominations. Have at it.

I haven't seen many of the nominated films, so I can't comment too much. I did see Joker though, and while I thought Phoenix was amazing, the movie itself was meh. And I haven't seen the Mister Rogers movie, but how does Hanks get a supporting actor nod for that? Was he not the lead?

I hope Pesci wins. He was pretty damn good in The Irishman.

And I hope to god that American Factory wins for best doc - if only to see Obama up on stage accepting the award. (It was his production company that made the movie.) It will make Trump's head explode.

Best Picture:

“Ford v Ferrari”
“The Irishman”
“Jojo Rabbit”
“Joker”
“Little Women”
“Marriage Story”
“1917”
“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
“Parasite”

Lead Actor:

Antonio Banderas, “Pain and Glory”
Leonardo DiCaprio, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
Adam Driver, “Marriage Story”
Joaquin Phoenix, “Joker”
Jonathan Pryce, “The Two Popes”

Lead Actress:

Cynthia Erivo, “Harriet”
Scarlett Johansson, “Marriage Story”
Saoirse Ronan, “Little Women”
Charlize Theron, “Bombshell”
Renee Zellweger, “Judy”

Supporting Actor:

Tom Hanks, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”
Anthony Hopkins, “The Two Popes”
Al Pacino, “The Irishman”
Joe Pesci, “The Irishman”
Brad Pitt, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”

Supporting Actress:

Kathy Bates, “Richard Jewell”
Laura Dern, “Marriage Story”
Scarlett Johansson, “Jojo Rabbit”
Florence Pugh, “Little Women”
Margot Robbie, “Bombshell”

Director:

Martin Scorsese, “The Irishman”
Todd Phillips, “Joker”
Sam Mendes, “1917”
Quentin Tarantino, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
Bong Joon Ho, “Parasite”

Animated Feature:

“How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World,” Dean DeBlois
“I Lost My Body,” Jeremy Clapin
“Klaus,” Sergio Pablos
“Missing Link,” Chris Butler
“Toy Story 4,” Josh Cooley

Animated Short:

“Dcera,” Daria Kashcheeva
“Hair Love,” Matthew A. Cherry
“Kitbull,” Rosana Sullivan
“Memorable,” Bruno Collet
“Sister,” Siqi Song

Best Documentary Feature:

“American Factory,” Julia Rieichert, Steven Bognar
“The Cave,” Feras Fayyad
“The Edge of Democracy,” Petra Costa
“For Sama,” Waad Al-Kateab, Edward Watts
“Honeyland,” Tamara Kotevska, Ljubo Stefanov

drummerboy said:

And I haven't seen the Mister Rogers movie, but how does Hanks get a supporting actor nod for that? Was he not the lead?

My wife had the same question. I haven’t seen the film, either, but I believe the story is more about the reporter than about Fred Rogers.

DaveSchmidt said:

drummerboy said:

And I haven't seen the Mister Rogers movie, but how does Hanks get a supporting actor nod for that? Was he not the lead?

My wife had the same question. I haven’t seen the film, either, but I believe the story is more about the reporter than about Fred Rogers.

 Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. However, if true, it kinda makes me want to see the movie less.

If you didn't see Honeyland, please try to see it. It's miraculous. Stunning. Takes you to another world. The best documentary, perhaps the best film, I saw all year.  

I also thought American Factory was extraordinary and I hope it wins - only for the reason drummerboy mentioned above.

How does Scarlett Johansson get double nominations ( best actress, best supporting actress )? Margo Robbie was the beautiful, innocent centerpiece in “One Upon a Time...” and should have been recognized as such. Scarlett snagged a spot from other more deserving actresses. What a disgrace. And Marriage Story put me to sleep quicker than last years Roma, and that’s saying a lot!

Here's another one.

Parasite, a foreign language film and a complete S. Korean production, gets a Best Picture nomination. 

Lionheart, a Nigerian film, is rejected for consideration in the Best Foreign Film category, because it's in English, which is the national language of Nigeria.

wut?

drummerboy said:

wut?

“In April 2019, we announced that the name of the foreign language film category changed to international feature film,” the academy said in a statement. “We also confirmed that the rules for the category would not change. The intent of the award remains the same — to recognize accomplishment in films created outside of the United States in languages other than English.” 

DaveSchmidt said:

drummerboy said:

wut?

“In April 2019, we announced that the name of the foreign language film category changed to international feature film,” the academy said in a statement. “We also confirmed that the rules for the category would not change. The intent of the award remains the same — to recognize accomplishment in films created outside of the United States in languages other than English.” 

 my "wut" still stands.

Of course it does.

I watched For Sama.  Incredible footage.  Definitely a hard to watch film, but something people should see to understand what's happening over there.

drummerboy said:

DaveSchmidt said:

drummerboy said:

wut?

“In April 2019, we announced that the name of the foreign language film category changed to international feature film,” the academy said in a statement. “We also confirmed that the rules for the category would not change. The intent of the award remains the same — to recognize accomplishment in films created outside of the United States in languages other than English.” 

 my "wut" still stands.

 As it should. A friend of mine made a film in northern India, entirely in Hindi, with an all Indian crew rejected by the Oscars from Foreign Language film consideration because the director of Indian descent was British, and it was funded by British production companies, and as such was considered a British film - BUT - couldn't ACTUALLY be considered a British film because Hindi is not a native language to the UK.

So yeah. Wut, indeed.

Edited to add: He kind of had the last laugh, though, 'cause he finally got his (first) Oscar in 2016, so they can suck it.

A 2002 BBC article about The Warrior, including a mention of a Hong Kong film that ran up against the same obstacle as Lionheart:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/2527435.stm

It just seems to me that maybe the academy should just drop the whole foreign film category. The rules are pretty arbitrary, and really, whats the point? It relegates a class of movies to second-rate status. Especially if they're going to give Parasite a best picture nom. 

Has there ever been a completely foreign production like Parasite nominated for best pic before?

Yes. See below. Plus Roma (ugh) from last year. None has ever won though.

And to save Dave Schmidt the task of fact checking me, yes, not all of the listed films are "completely foreign productions", though I think most are.

Letters From Iwo Jima is on that list because it’s mostly spoken in a foreign language, not because it was a foreign production. It was an entirely American (Eastwood) film.

(I checked because I was interested, spared the task or otherwise.)

DaveSchmidt said:

Letters From Iwo Jima is on that list because it’s mostly spoken in a foreign language, not because it was a foreign production. It was an entirely American (Eastwood) film.

(I checked because I was interested, spared the task or otherwise.)

 Yes I looked it up myself. I remembered it was directed by Eastwood, so I was surprised it was a foreign entry.

drummerboy said:

 Yes I looked it up myself. I remembered it was directed by Eastwood, so I was surprised it was a foreign entry.

What you posted were foreign-language films nominated for best picture. Where did you see that it was a foreign entry? Or maybe a more clarifying question: What do you mean by “foreign entry”?