Oppenheimer wins 7 Oscars (Best Picture) (film & awards)

[Orser67]

Of the moves I've seen from OP's post, I'd tier them as:

Very good:
A Star is Born, The Favourite, Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, Sorry to Bother You

Good:
Black Panther, BlackKklansman, Vice, Infinity War, Eighth Grade, First Man, Can You Ever Forgive Me, If Beale Street Could Talk (which, btw, I liked a lot more than Moonlight), The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs, Avengers: Endgame, Dolemite Is My Name, Rocketman, Eighth Grade, Cold War

Ok:
Bohemian Rhapsody, Incredibles 2, Leave No Trace

A few others I liked: "Love, Simon," "Mid-90s," "Support the Girls", "Isle of Dogs"

[Orser67]

Still haven't seen most of the Best Picture front-runners, but I just saw Marriage Story, and I thought it was really good. I definitely think it's good enough to win BP.

Ford v. Ferrari was the ultimate dad movie (and in fact, my dad really liked it). I thought it was a solid, entertaining film that was a little long. Along with Rocket Man, Booksmart, and Dolemite is My Name, I'd be fine with it getting a BP nomination, but I wouldn't want it to win Best Picture.

[Orser67]

For 2017, my favorite film was Thor: Ragnarok. But in terms of Best Picture, I would have given it to Lady Bird. I really liked the first half of Three Billboards, but it fell apart for me in the second half. The Shape of Water was a good movie but I didn't think it deserved to win. My rankings of 2017:

Very good: Lady Bird, The Post, Florida Project, The Big Sick, The Death of Stalin, Blade Runner 2049, Thor Ragnarok

Good: Three Billboards, Logan Lucky, Wind River, Get Out, Darkest Hour, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Baby Driver, Mudbound, Spider-Man Homecoming, Wonder Woman, The Shape of Water, I Tonya, Mother!, Good Time, The Disaster Artist, Logan, The Meyerowitz Stories, probably a few others

Ok: First Reformed, Phantom Thread, Dunkirk, The Lost City of Z, Columbus

Most disappointing: Last Jedi, Alien Covenant

Worst movie I saw all year: Singularity

[Orser67]

As far as Best Picture goes, the movies that can actually win the award at this point are The Irishman, Parasite, Marriage Story and Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, with 1917 being an underdog 5th option and Jojo Rabbit being a long-shot highly unlikely 6th option. There is theoretically a chance for a few movies to go from a 0% chance of winning up to a 5% long-shot chance between now and the Oscars, those movies being Little Women, Joker and The Two Popes. So there are 4 or 5 real contenders and 9 total contenders at this point.

The other movies people mention in regards to Best Picture can only hope for a nomination at best, which is still a big deal in itself. Those movies are Ford V Ferrari, Bombshell, The Farewell, Knives Out, Uncut Gems, A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood, and then again for this category there are 5 or 10 highly unlikely other movies with a 10% chance or less of sneaking in as a suprise nomination.

Out of the 9 actual contenders, I've seen 6, and the one I would recommend most to anybody is Parasite. Totally worth a watch if you get the chance to see it.

I haven't followed Best Picture closely yet, but based on my understanding from previous years I think that you're probably right in saying that there are 5 movies with an actual chance. I would be really surprised, though, if Parasite or 1917 won based on the fact that foreign language films and war movies (respectively) don't seem to win very often. My guess is that it will come down to the Irishman (peak Scorsese is always a contender), Marriage Story (the kind of film that often wins Oscars), and Once Upon a Time (subject matter + Tarantino being due for a win).

[Orser67]

I haven't followed Best Picture closely yet, but based on my understanding from previous years I think that you're probably right in saying that there are 5 movies with an actual chance. I would be really surprised, though, if Parasite or 1917 won based on the fact that foreign language films and war movies (respectively) don't seem to win very often. My guess is that it will come down to the Irishman (peak Scorsese is always a contender), Marriage Story (the kind of film that often wins Oscars), and Once Upon a Time (subject matter + Tarantino being due for a win).

Tarantino has two Oscars (one more than Scorsese) and even his fans admit that OUATIH is his weakest film.

Yeah, I should have been more specific. He's won two Oscars, but they were both for screenwriting. He's never won Best Director (despite two nominations) and a Tarantino film has never won Best Picture (despite three nominations).

[Orser67]

I saw The Irishman last week. I thought it was a really good movie, and I really liked how Scorsese sort of counter-glamorized mob films (and went over some fairly accurate political history!) even while he made a classic Scorsese film.

But I would also say that it wasn't quite as good as Goodfellas, and it was obviously very, very long. Without the need to give Scorsese an Oscar (given his Best Picture and Best Director win for Departed) I'm skeptical that it will win BP (though it will almost certainly be nominated). In my intuition-driven (i.e. probably worthless) opinion, I'm now gonna say that Marriage Story and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (which I still haven't seen) are the co-frontrunners, though I do acknowledge T'Chenka's persuasive argument regarding Parasite.

[Orser67]

Marriage Story was in the top 4 as a front-runner as early as 2 weeks ago, but suprisingly it has basically fallen out of "front-runner" status and dropped to a second tier as #4, still above 1917 at #5 and still way above the third tier (Jojo Rabbit, Joker), fourth tier (Little Women) and fifth tier (Ford V Ferrari, The Two Popes, Bombshell). The main reason for this is that it keeps getting snubbed for Best Director nominations, which are going to Joker and Little Women instead.

Fair point, and TIL that Crash was the most recent film to win BP without being nominated for Best Director at the Golden Globes. On the other hand, I remember a few years ago Argo surprised a lot of people by winning Best Picture even though Affleck wasn't nominated for Best Director at the Academy Awards.

[Orser67]

They briefly BP an exception to this rule and allow the producers branch to have ten votes (top ten films) for the 2010 Oscars, but a few films got nominated that the academy felt were from “low art genres” like The Blind Side (mainstream crowd pleaser/sports film), District 9 (Sci-Fi), A Serious Man (comedy), and Up (animated film).  Up and District 9’s BP nods in particular pissed off a lot of folks in the academy.  The academy promptly opted to return to the “pick one film” rule as a sort of genre gerrymandering of BP nominations. 

That's a shame, Up and District 9 were both very good films, and there's nothing wrong with the Academy giving BP noms to particularly good animated/genre films. I'd easily take both of those films over e.g. War Horse and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.

[Orser67]

I just found this... interesting... video essay on Marriage Story, possibly made by a MGTOW guy. I honestly haven't watched it yet, but the text description ALONE made me want to post it, which I'll share below.

MARRIAGE STORY spoilers ahead!!!

Spoiler alert! Click Show to show the content.

Show

"Published on Dec 13, 2019

Marriage Story can be perfectly summed up by the opening and closing sequences. This movie is not about compromise or quality parenting... it is about unilateral control where Charlie should lose everything because Nicole decided she wants more.

In the beginning... it is perfectly demonstrated by her unwillingness to even read positive words about her husband, though he himself is perfectly willing to praise her... and it is reinforced at the end, by her awarding him the privilege of reading those very words, only because he has now lost his career, bent to her will, moved to a city he hates, just to see the child he loves, after she weaponized that child against him.

I despise this movie... it's an agenda-driven piece of garbage meant to reconstruct an emotionally sensitive topic in a disingenuous way."

https://youtu.be/ZLfrf_00Ync

By contrast, in the one non-internet conversation I've had about this film, one of the women I was talking to said that she didn't want to see it because she heard that it portrayed the guy in too good of a light.

[Orser67]

I can't speak to the quality of many of the films that were nominated (though I may now go out of my way to see 1917 in theaters). But I wholeheartedly endorse Succession (best drama), Fleabag (best comedy), and Chernobyl (best miniseries). I also like seeing Ramy get some attention.

[Orser67]

I still haven't seen all of the BP nominees, but I'm rooting for 1917. I really enjoyed the personal journeys of the two main characters, as well as what the film had to say about WW1. I was worried that the continuous shot thing would be distracting, but I actually loved the results and thought that the film had great pacing.

I thought Parasite was a really good film that had a lot of interesting things to say about economic inequality, but I never truly connected with the characters and I think that there were some things that maybe I didn't quite understand due to cultural barriers. Supposedly they're planning for a miniseries, and I'm looking forward to watching that.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood had cool characters, a fun setting, great production values, etc., but the movie had no plot. It was fun to watch but I hope it doesn't win. It's basically Tarantino's version of an Oscar-bait film.

Marriage Story is the movie I connected with most, and is probably my co-favorite with 1917 (in fact, they're probably my favorite movies since 2016's Manchester By the Sea). I thought it did a great job of showing the breakdown of a marriage from both POVs and it really made me and my significant other think about stuff.

The Irishman documented an interesting period in history and was a fun return to Casino/Goodfellas. That said, it was way too long and De Niro really didn't work for me as a guy who was supposed to be in his 30s.

Ford vs. Ferrari is the ultimate dad movie. It definitely shouldn't win Best Picture (and it won't), but the movie is basically the best possible version of itself, and I couldn't ask for anything more (well, I wouldn't mind if it were just a little shorter).

I'm really looking forward to watching Jojo Rabbit. I'll probably watch Joker at some point, but I'm not sure if I'll ever catch Little Women (though it does have a great cast and I'm a fan of Greta Gerwig).

Other than the BP nominees, my favorite movies of the year was probably Avengers: Endgame; I also liked The Report (which I highly recommend to the political junkies on this forum), The Two Popes, Rise of Skywalker, Captain Marvel, Rocketman, Dolemite Is My Name, and The King. I'm really looking forward to watching Knives Out, Uncut Gems, and The Farewell.

[Orser67]

Well, I would've voted for 1917, but Parasite was a solid film and I definitely liked it better than Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Looking back on films released from 2010-2019, I only agreed with the Academy on the best film twice: 2013 for Twelve Year's a Slave and 2010 for the King's Speech.

[Orser67]

Joaquin Phoenix’s speech was just...out there. Environmentalism isn’t the type of thing to talk about considering what the Oscar was for.

Especially given that the particular type of environmentalist rhetoric he used was dredged from the darkest depths of Vegan Tumblr. Yeesh.

You can tell he's genuinely passionate about it, and it's not just the thing he cares about because it's the trendy and popular thing to care about while preaching to the choir of 90% of the people in the room.  So I didn't mind it compared to most political Oscar speeches.

I agree. His views are a bit out there for me, but I respect that he seems to really hold those beliefs and isn't just virtue signaling.

[Orser67]

In light of Parasite's win, I hope that the Academy starts to think about establishing a "Best American film" category; BAFTA has a similar category for Best British film. I think that would be a good way of ensuring both that American films continue to be recognized by the Academy and that international films are not penalized in the Best Picture category.

[Orser67]

King TChenka got me curious about this subject, so here's one site's predictions on the next Oscar favorites, with their release month and a short explanation provided by me:

The French Dispatch (July): see above
Greyhound (May): Tom Hanks-starring war film about an American naval commander defending merchant ships from U-boats during the early part of WW2
In the Heights (June): Musical based on a Lin-Manuel Miranda stage musical about an Hispanic-American neighborhood in NYC
The Last Duel (December): Ridley Scott historical drama about a duel in 14th century France
Mank (TBA):  David Fincher film about Herman J. Mankiewicz and his battles with director Orson Welles over screenplay credit for Citizen Kane
On the Rocks (TBA): Sofia Coppola comedy-drama about a young mother (played by Rashida Jones) who reconnects with her larger than life playboy father (played by Bill Murray)
The Trial of the Chicago 7 (September): Aaron Sorkin film about the trial of the Chicago Seven, who took part in the protests/riots against the 1968 DNC
True History of the Kelly Gang (April): The story of Australian bushranger Ned Kelly and his gang as they flee from authorities during the 1870s.
West Side Story (December): Steven Spielberg's remake of the classic musical

[Orser67]

My unsolicited opinion of Oscar contenders and a few other random movies:

Haven't seen, but want to: Tar, Fabelmans, Women Talking, Aftersun, Triangle of Sadness, The Whale, Babylon, Black Panther, White Noise, Till, Living

Very good: Everything Everywhere, Banshees
Good: Top Gun, Nope, She Said, Avatar, All Quiet, Pinocchio
Liked it, but not BP nom-worthy imo: RRR, Amsterdam
Well made, but didn't do much for me: Thirteen Lives
Meh: Glass Onion, Don't Worry Darling, the Menu, Pale Blue Eye, Elvis
Not an awards contender, but I liked it: After Yang, The Northman, Bullet Train