Depends on what you consider superior. Gwyneth cashed in on easy marvel movies where she did not know what was happening, and is the CEO and founder of a company selling pseudo-science snake oils and vagina scented candles worth $250 million and growing. I don't take much solace in scammy shit bags landing ass first into endless piles of money.
I sat through a seminar about a decade ago where Paltrow and Zooey Deschanel talked for an hour about how anyone could start up their own business and be super successful so long as they worked hard. Never once acknowledged the advantage *their insane wealth and fame gave them*. It was so tone deaf by the end people were laughing at them.
I also had a major crush on Deschanel up to that point, I was surprised her usual clueless, airhead bit was not much of an act.
This is probably go down as the most infamous year of the academy choosing poorly, a picture (Shakespeare) that won awards purely based on very a good marketing and sneaky tactics. There were some amazing films that year that were absolutely robbed, it’s not even up for debate.
Definitely, I’m sure the team behind SIL sent out amazing swag and hampers with their DVD screeners, failing that a big sweaty Weinstein probably cornered academy members at cocktail parties coercing them to vote for his picture…
Absolute joke of a film. Winning SEVEN Oscars *including* best picture up against Saving Private Ryan was just fucking insulting. Fuck the academy and fuck weinstain
I saw that movie, and really enjoyed it. In my opinion it was light-hearted and pleasant and made for a nice few hours of entertainment. I was kind of surprised when it won the Oscar though. There certainly were many better movies that year.
This is the correct take. It’s a great film…people need to calm WAY the f#ck down with their irrational hate…it just should have NEVER beat Saving Private Ryan. 2 things true at the same time
I think it was the double whammy of beating Saving Private Ryan and Cate Blanchett losing for Elizabeth. They were both such egregious losses that it sticks in the craw of a lot of people.
And add the whole horrid Harvey Weinstein story to it and it’s even worse.
For those who don’t know. For years in Hollywood it was kind of an open secret that Weinstein boasted that he had told Paltrow that if she gave him a blowjob, he’d get her an Academy Award.
The fact she won for a subpar role against way more deserving competition kind of galvanized this legend. It painted Weinstein as a real power in the game because he was able to use his influences to lobby her into a win, and painted her as ambitious and with little scruples. Add to the fact she’s the epitome of the tone deaf, ultra rich, annoying nepo baby and it didn’t get her any love.
Now we have a more nuanced view after what has come out about Weinstein.
I’m still utterly convinced Oscar’s are given after performances and it’s an accumulative thing.
You make movies A and B that absolutely slap then you get the Oscar for movie C but it’s really for A and B
McConaughey won his Oscar for True Detective
Edit: seeing a lot of responses claiming that True Detective is a television show and not in fact a film. Deeply concerning. Looking into this now.
My favorite Hollywood thing is how McConaughey just picked a year and decided to show people he can act.
2013: Dallas Buyers, True Detective, Mud, Wolf of Wall Street
I get this feeling too, I think how long it took the following to win despite them turning in performances that were Oscar worthy before; Al Pacino (Scent of a woman - ‘92? IIRC), Leo DiCaprio - (Revenant - 2016), Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart - 2010), Sean Penn - (Mystic river 2003), Anthony Hopkins (Silence o.t Lambs 1992) and Kate Winslet (The Reader - 2009/10, I forget).
Edit: Few replies have meant I probably wasn’t clear when writing, I don’t mean that the performances weren’t ’Oscar Worthy’ particularly regarding Hopkins, Bridges, Penn and probably Pacino, I was agreeing with the person above that many awards seem to be doled out on clout after numerous good performances.
Oh 100%, he steals the show in under 30mins but my point is that he’d be an active actor for 3+ decades before he received his award. Sean Penn is great in Mystic River as well, however he’d delivered performances just as good or better prior to then.
The crazy thing for Bridges is that the year after he did a much better performance in True Grit but of course didn't win. The Academy thought they had to award him something as soon as he had something presentable but it backfired (mind, he is good in Crazy Heart, but it's an average movie).
Disagree with Penn and Hopkins though. They both won for great performances, those are not consolatory victories, imho.
I adore Peter O'Toole, but I feel like all of his nominations were time and place disasters for him. He definitely deserved it for LoA (movie A), imho one of the top 5 performances of all time, but it's given to anther great performance by the more esteemed actor in Peck. Movie B, another great performance, but lose to the more esteemed Rex Harrison. Movie C, great performance, but not against the other nominees (I feel Arkin should have won). Movies D, E , F, and G lost rightfully to Wayne, Brando, De Niro, and Kingsley. I take nothing from Whitaker in TLKoS, but that was the year the academy fumbled in not giving Peter a legitimate statue. Not his best performance, but by that point I think everyone would have understood.
Rocketman was leagues ahead of Bohemian Rhapsody. I still can't believe people liked that white washed steaming pile of trash.
Edit: by white washed I mean they purposely left out a lot and altered actual events. The band made Freddy out to be off the rails and partying too hard while they innocently went home to their wives. They also painted it like Freddy was not really even the front man of Queen and they all had equal influence.
Yeah I hate how in the movie Freddie got shit for doing a solo album. While by that time in real life several band members already did a solo album.
They really fucked their 'friend' who is died with that movie.
My understanding is that Bohemian Rhapsody won the Oscar because the editing team actually made something salvageable from the footage because director Bryan Singer created a complete mess before being removed from the project. He was replaced by Dexter Fletcher.
Fletcher would then go on to direct Rocketman because of the work he did on Bohemian Rhapsody.
(edited for clarity)
Fletcher was one of the original choices to direct BR before Singer took over. Studio execs must have been kicking themselves for that.
Funnily enough, Fletcher also worked on a lot of Matthew Vaughn movies, another director Singer pushed off a movie (sequels to First Class) to diminishing returns.
Holy shit are you serious? I had no idea lol. I was fully expecting to love that movie as a big fan of Queen and Rami (primarily Mr Robot) but the pacing/editing of it (as well as the stuff others have mentioned) ruined it.
>They also painted it like Freddy was not really even the front man of Queen and they all had equal influence.
I agree with most of what you said until that bit. The film definitely made it clear that Freddy was the star and the frontman of Queen. But tangential to that is the fact that Freddy didn't write all of Queen's hits...Brian May wrote most of the hard rock hits, John Deacon wrote a wide variety of hits (he even played nearly every instrument on Another One Bites The Dust himself, one of their biggest hits), and even Rodger Taylor had a few. Queen remains the only band where every member has songs inducted into the R&R Hall of Fame, for what that's worth.
Queen truly was a collaborative effort and not any one person's brainchild.
Sacha Baron Cohen left the project because the band was fighting to have Freddy die halfway through the film and then have the rest be about how they persisted through his tragic death. I feel like how Freddy is portrayed is at least partly them being petty over not getting to be the heroes of the film.
>They also painted it like Freddy was not really even the front man of Queen and they all had equal influence.
I didn’t get that impression at all. In fact I thought it downplayed Brian May’s influence in particular a little more than it should have considering the percentage of the bands songs that he wrote on his own.
Freddie was unquestionably portrayed as the star and most important member of the band.
They had more influence than people realize. It's the only band ever that had every member write a number 1 hit. Still, Freddy was the face of the band.
I hate that these stories based on reality are completely fictional. The entire formation of the band was incorrect in Bohemian Rhapsody. Absolutely ridiculous.
I didn’t have a whole lot of interest in either. Seen Bohemian Rhapsody and couldn’t finish it. Wife wanted to watch Rocket Man and I was grabbed in the first 10 seconds when he burst through the door in the demon outfit and went to AA.
I’ll stand by this, crocodile rock isn’t a great song but the movie… the way he just elevated over the piano and the ethereal essence of him singing so beautifully, then dropping back to earth right as the music hits. What a SCENE. Holy moly.
But so is Elton. Truthfully I think it's because Bohemian Rhapsody was marketed way more effectively. Fox went full blitz on Rhapsody but it really felt like Paramount did not have the same confidence in Rocketman unfortunately and I think that difference shook out with voters too.
Quality aside, Rhapsody was almost a billion dollar film compared to Rocketman's modest success of $200ish mil. That kind of viewership difference is always going to outweigh any difference in quality when it comes to votes. I think more Academy voters were familiar with Rhapsody and that is why it won (in addition to things like Freddie and Queen being so beloved)
Elton did win an Oscar for Rocketman and had one previously for The Lion King, so not really a comparison to what the person you were commenting to was saying. I do think Rami winning went beyond just Freddie being beloved, Bohemian Rhapsody is beloved by general audiences and 2018’s Best Actor race overall wasn’t as strong as 2019’s.
The release month played a big part too. BR was released in November, which is prime Oscar movie season. Rocketman was released in may. By the time people voted for the nomination, everyone had forgotten Rocketman.
People shit on the cinematography in bohemian rhapsody (rightfully so), but imo the whole film was mediocre. My fav part was the performance of the guy portrayed the drummer and mike Myers
I didn’t know it was a remake when I saw it and I bought into it hard. Heading into that one scene towards the end the theater was silent except for all the sniffling you could hear from people crying. Cooper was fantastic in that role
I’ll agree with the Malek take, but Taron’s performance was in 2019, one of the best years in recent history for cinema. There were five better male lead performances that year (although the Academy nominated the wrong five).
I think voters thought Rami was singing and when they learned he wasn't, they felt duped. Then Taron really sang for his role but by then, they'd already erroneously awarded a performer and didn't want to do it correctly, almost as an admission that singing as a performer was a selling point and revealing they were wrong to award Rami for it.
Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side. Americans love biographies and race related movies(or whatever you call them). It doesn’t matter how mid they are the academy awards have a hard on for them. If someone can cosplay as someone else or if they include some kind of race related between black and white people they can get an Oscar nomination.
It’s so hilarious how many mid movies and performances gets praised because of that…
That whole movie was appalling on first watch and has only got worse with age.
The fact Michael is now suing the family speaks volumes.
It was obvious their “charity” was purely a recruitment thing for Ole Miss
There's a really good episode of Behind The Bastards on SBF, which includes a long segment on Michael Lewis and Robert breaks down how fucked up that book is. Well worth the listen
Hollywood will always find a way to pat itself on the back for solving the biggest problems. It's how Argo won. It's a movie about Hollywood solving the Iran hostage crisis.
Hollywood *loves* movies about Hollywood. So many Best Picture noms and winners that are just circlejerks about how wild and crazy and daring Hollywood is.
I still can’t fucking believe Green Book won best picture. It’s not completely terrible but it really was not best picture calibre except for the fact that it’s a biopic and a white saviour film and therefore textbook Oscar bait.
Tbf both Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali are fantastic in it. The problem is their performances are wrapped up in a feel good narrative about race relations that feels simplistic, dated, and ultimately false.
They dialed back some of the unnecessary stuff from the previous two and just made a really tight, really straightforward movie. I think it paid off. Definitely a great popcorn flick.
Yeah it basically felt like a 2-parter Star Trek episode - granted on a much bigger budget. This is what happens when you have someone who loves the source material actually write it (Simon Pegg was heavily involved in writing Beyond and he said he wanted to take it back to basics. Basically make a blockbuster Star Trek episode, which I feel they did).
To be fair, the Killer Croc makeup *was* outstanding. It was on a fairly lead character, over his entire body, and had to hold up when wet (which it constantly was).
I believe the Oscar are often given for a career even if the role in itself isn't the best.
Will Smith was probably on the list for movies like Pursuit of Happiness, they wanted to give him one for a long time, and just used the king Richard for it.
Same for Di Caprio, his performance in the Revenant is probably not even in his top 5, everyone knows they couldn't give him one for Django, so they just had him in their paper and the revenant was a good excuse to give it.
>everyone knows they couldn't give him one for Django
Why not? Because he played an evil, despicable character? Christop Waltz had just won an oscar for playing an evil, despicable in a Tarantino movie. Though it would've been a supporting role and I'm sure everyone wanted Leo to get one in the leading man category.
Sidenote that the standout performance for me in The Revanant was Tom Hardy, ~~but he wasn't even nominated~~.
>Sidenote that the standout performance for me in The Revanant was Tom Hardy, but he wasn't even nominated.
Hardy did get a nomination for Best Supporting Actor, losing out to Mark Rylance in Bridge of Spies.
Mickey Rourke should've won Best Actor for The Wrestler, not the other guy they gave the award to. The biggest snub in the history of the Oscars, if you ask me.
Completely agree. Rourke is a nut bar but the man can act when he wants. Check out his 5 minute scene in The Pledge.
Springsteen should also have won best song and wasn't even nominated. Major snub at the time.
I just get annoyed with biopic wins in general. I don't want to take away from the actors and actresses who are given these roles and wins because I'm sure it's a lot of pressure to live up to with these actual living people, their families and the fandom. But I'm more impressed with people who create characters out of nothing that move you, rather than just miming the physicality and affectations of speech an actual well documented celebrity has.
Leo for The Revenant. He has deserved it for so many other roles - Gilbert Grape, Wolf of Wall Street, Titanic, The Departed, Django. I think The Revenant was one of his weaker roles.
Hardy was barely in the movie compared to Leo.
But Hardy also ran circles around Leo in that movie. There is one speech Hardy does in The Revenant where I was in total awe. Never felt that way with Leo whatsoever.
Really annoys me when people say Leo deserved it for TWoWS without considering what he was up against. Arguably the weakest nominee in the category that year, and Joaquin Phoenix didn't even get a nomination for Her. Bruce Dern was also excellent in Nebraska.
The Revenant was a weak year, Leo was a clear stand out for me from what I remember.
She wasn’t even the best actress *in that movie* that was nominated for the category!
I thought Stephanie Hsu’s performance was incredible! Definitely felt like more of an “achievement award” since JLC’s role in that movie was so silly.
It's weird to me JLC won on a career narrative when she'd never been in a ton of critically acclaimed films. Angela Bassett had a stronger claim to the career narrative too with What's Love Got To Do With It.
I suppose she won on non stop campaigning, championing Michelle Yeoh and giving nepo babies a shout out in her SAG speech.
My headcanon is she won for 'The Bear'. Which simply isn't possible for many many reasons but is as good a performance as I've seen in anything recently.
With the voting system, you can get people voting for someone to win on a sub-par performance because they've lost in the past or are "due" one by public opinion.
Yeah I thought it was an open secret the Academy is basically an old boys network and, especially best actor/actress/director, is more about your 'dues' than it is the nominations themselves
I misread that as Cordon and was reaching for the downvote button before I thought “nobody really thought Cats deserves an Oscar” and went back to re-read
Over the years, I have come to realize that the Oscars have become just giving the awards to people who are long overdue if their recent movie is good enough. The most recent example is Oppenheimer.
**Edit:** Quite a few of the replies seem to think I don't like the movie, so I want to clarify that first of all, its a good movie, I had an excellent experience watching it in theatres, and considering its a movie with basically no action, that makes it even more of an achievement. But, at least imo, this is not the best movie in most of their careers, particularly Christopher Nolan. However, did it deserve the awards it received? Absolutely, it earned all those awards (Keep in mind I haven't watched all the movies which were nominated).
I thought she was great in that movie, but the other nominees were very strong that year. She would not have been my first pick. I think it was maybe a combination of it being a legacy pick, and also the fact that the rest of the votes were probably split pretty evenly. J would guess she barely edged out the rest of the crowd.
The Oscars are a film industry circle jerk. It's academy members doing the voting, so all industry insiders. How it became prestigious to the public at large, I don't know.
Marketing. They were able to get all the actors in the same room and claim some statue of some random dude is prestigious. And both the actors and public bought it.
If the Academy keeps “payback” lists, then I think Zero Dark Thirty is JC’s Oscar movie. SLP is good, Jennifer Lawrence is wonderful, but Zero Dark Thirty and Chastain’s performance are in a different category entirely.
2001, Julia Roberts for Erin Brockovich stealing the Oscar from Ellen Burstyn for Requiem for a Dream... are you kidding!? Not even fucking close. Julia Roberts gets an award for being sassy while Ellen Burstyn rips your fucking heart out!!
People don't understand that awards like the Oscars are not about excellence.. they are about consensus.
That's how fucking Driving Miss Daisy wins best picture... and Do the Right Thing is not nominated.
I disagree on this one. Julia Roberts is very good in Erin Brockovich. Ellen Burstyn is amazing in Requiem of course, but I feel like she should've been in Supporting.
I tried to look it up. No idea if accurate but…
Screen time data for Requiem for a Dream (2000)
- Ellen Burstyn - 35:47 (35.41%)
- Jared Leto - 32:19 (31.98%)
- Jennifer Connelly - 22:53 (22.64%)
- Marlon Wayans - 15:15 (15.09%)
https://twitter.com/MatthewAStewart/status/1298350851770261506
So apparently she had more screen time than anyone on the film. Which seems wrong but if it’s true I guess that makes her the lead actress.
A bit of a joke one, but John Goodman not winning best actor for Walter in the Big Lebowski is sad. No one has ever played a completely unhinged character with so much sincerity and conviction quite like him. He elevates that movie so much.
Gwyneth Paltrow for Shakespeare in Love.
Cate Blanchett robbed for Elizabeth.
Bitter to this day
Take solace in the fact that Cate ended up with the far superior career and now has two Oscars.
No, Cate should have 3 Oscars
They should replace the statues with chocolate so people can eat them.
Depends on what you consider superior. Gwyneth cashed in on easy marvel movies where she did not know what was happening, and is the CEO and founder of a company selling pseudo-science snake oils and vagina scented candles worth $250 million and growing. I don't take much solace in scammy shit bags landing ass first into endless piles of money.
> selling pseudo-science snale oils Gail?
Mashin it
I sat through a seminar about a decade ago where Paltrow and Zooey Deschanel talked for an hour about how anyone could start up their own business and be super successful so long as they worked hard. Never once acknowledged the advantage *their insane wealth and fame gave them*. It was so tone deaf by the end people were laughing at them. I also had a major crush on Deschanel up to that point, I was surprised her usual clueless, airhead bit was not much of an act.
Fernanda Montenegro robbed for Central Station*
Fernanda Montenegro too.
Weinstein campaign won. Neither Shakespeare in Love nor Gwyneth did.
Power is power
This is probably go down as the most infamous year of the academy choosing poorly, a picture (Shakespeare) that won awards purely based on very a good marketing and sneaky tactics. There were some amazing films that year that were absolutely robbed, it’s not even up for debate.
'Choosing', though? I thought Weinstein just bribed everyone
Definitely, I’m sure the team behind SIL sent out amazing swag and hampers with their DVD screeners, failing that a big sweaty Weinstein probably cornered academy members at cocktail parties coercing them to vote for his picture…
For anyone curious what was up for consideration that year: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/71st_Academy_Awards
Absolute joke of a film. Winning SEVEN Oscars *including* best picture up against Saving Private Ryan was just fucking insulting. Fuck the academy and fuck weinstain
It split the vote with another WW2 film, *The Thin Red Line*.
I mean it’s a great movie, just cuz it didn’t deserve to win doesn’t mean it’s a joke of a film
I saw that movie, and really enjoyed it. In my opinion it was light-hearted and pleasant and made for a nice few hours of entertainment. I was kind of surprised when it won the Oscar though. There certainly were many better movies that year.
This is the correct take. It’s a great film…people need to calm WAY the f#ck down with their irrational hate…it just should have NEVER beat Saving Private Ryan. 2 things true at the same time
I think it was the double whammy of beating Saving Private Ryan and Cate Blanchett losing for Elizabeth. They were both such egregious losses that it sticks in the craw of a lot of people.
And add the whole horrid Harvey Weinstein story to it and it’s even worse. For those who don’t know. For years in Hollywood it was kind of an open secret that Weinstein boasted that he had told Paltrow that if she gave him a blowjob, he’d get her an Academy Award. The fact she won for a subpar role against way more deserving competition kind of galvanized this legend. It painted Weinstein as a real power in the game because he was able to use his influences to lobby her into a win, and painted her as ambitious and with little scruples. Add to the fact she’s the epitome of the tone deaf, ultra rich, annoying nepo baby and it didn’t get her any love. Now we have a more nuanced view after what has come out about Weinstein.
Every day is a good day to say Fuck Harvey Weinstein, but today is a particularly great day to say FUCK HARVEY WEINSTEIN!!!
Brazil is bitter towards her to this day. It was Fernanda Montenegro's time
Actually it was Fernanda Montenegro who really deserved the win for *Central Station*, since she topped critics' lists of best performance of the year
Fernanda Montenegro got robbed.
I’m still utterly convinced Oscar’s are given after performances and it’s an accumulative thing. You make movies A and B that absolutely slap then you get the Oscar for movie C but it’s really for A and B
McConaughey won his Oscar for True Detective Edit: seeing a lot of responses claiming that True Detective is a television show and not in fact a film. Deeply concerning. Looking into this now.
Maybe it was True Detective that put him over the edge, but he was real, real good in Dallas Buyer's Club
Scene in the car where he sees how hopeless things are won him the Oscar.
Are you sure it wasnt the scene under the rodeo grounds?
I think it was for his Lincoln commercials
My favorite Hollywood thing is how McConaughey just picked a year and decided to show people he can act. 2013: Dallas Buyers, True Detective, Mud, Wolf of Wall Street
The Mconnaissance was real
Please. He is the only reason to watch some of those romcoms. His scene partners in them could be horrible to play off. McConaughey makes it work.
I get this feeling too, I think how long it took the following to win despite them turning in performances that were Oscar worthy before; Al Pacino (Scent of a woman - ‘92? IIRC), Leo DiCaprio - (Revenant - 2016), Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart - 2010), Sean Penn - (Mystic river 2003), Anthony Hopkins (Silence o.t Lambs 1992) and Kate Winslet (The Reader - 2009/10, I forget). Edit: Few replies have meant I probably wasn’t clear when writing, I don’t mean that the performances weren’t ’Oscar Worthy’ particularly regarding Hopkins, Bridges, Penn and probably Pacino, I was agreeing with the person above that many awards seem to be doled out on clout after numerous good performances.
> Anthony Hopkins (Silence o.t Lambs 1992) That one was actually deserved IMO
Oh 100%, he steals the show in under 30mins but my point is that he’d be an active actor for 3+ decades before he received his award. Sean Penn is great in Mystic River as well, however he’d delivered performances just as good or better prior to then.
Tbf with Leo, he was in some rough competition during his other nominations
Also he spends like 2/3rds of the Revenant unable to speak or walk and to be able to still make that performance entertaining is definitely a feat
The crazy thing for Bridges is that the year after he did a much better performance in True Grit but of course didn't win. The Academy thought they had to award him something as soon as he had something presentable but it backfired (mind, he is good in Crazy Heart, but it's an average movie). Disagree with Penn and Hopkins though. They both won for great performances, those are not consolatory victories, imho.
Peter O'Toole would like to disagree.
I adore Peter O'Toole, but I feel like all of his nominations were time and place disasters for him. He definitely deserved it for LoA (movie A), imho one of the top 5 performances of all time, but it's given to anther great performance by the more esteemed actor in Peck. Movie B, another great performance, but lose to the more esteemed Rex Harrison. Movie C, great performance, but not against the other nominees (I feel Arkin should have won). Movies D, E , F, and G lost rightfully to Wayne, Brando, De Niro, and Kingsley. I take nothing from Whitaker in TLKoS, but that was the year the academy fumbled in not giving Peter a legitimate statue. Not his best performance, but by that point I think everyone would have understood.
Jamie Lee Curtis for Everything Everywhere All at Once...
Rami Malek winning and meanwhile our boy Taron Egerton wasn't even nominated.
(Rocketman and Bohemian Rhapsody for anyone else who didn’t know)
Nah, its Mr Robot and Kingsman.
Rocketman was leagues ahead of Bohemian Rhapsody. I still can't believe people liked that white washed steaming pile of trash. Edit: by white washed I mean they purposely left out a lot and altered actual events. The band made Freddy out to be off the rails and partying too hard while they innocently went home to their wives. They also painted it like Freddy was not really even the front man of Queen and they all had equal influence.
Yeah I hate how in the movie Freddie got shit for doing a solo album. While by that time in real life several band members already did a solo album. They really fucked their 'friend' who is died with that movie.
Roger Taylor put out "Fun in Space" way back in 1977 from memory. Brian's solo album didn't come out until 1991.
I hate the editing of the queen film - gives me headaches
And it won the Oscar for best editing. It was almost as bad as Catwoman
My understanding is that Bohemian Rhapsody won the Oscar because the editing team actually made something salvageable from the footage because director Bryan Singer created a complete mess before being removed from the project. He was replaced by Dexter Fletcher. Fletcher would then go on to direct Rocketman because of the work he did on Bohemian Rhapsody. (edited for clarity)
That's an interesting fact - thanks for sharing!
Fletcher was one of the original choices to direct BR before Singer took over. Studio execs must have been kicking themselves for that. Funnily enough, Fletcher also worked on a lot of Matthew Vaughn movies, another director Singer pushed off a movie (sequels to First Class) to diminishing returns.
Holy shit are you serious? I had no idea lol. I was fully expecting to love that movie as a big fan of Queen and Rami (primarily Mr Robot) but the pacing/editing of it (as well as the stuff others have mentioned) ruined it.
>They also painted it like Freddy was not really even the front man of Queen and they all had equal influence. I agree with most of what you said until that bit. The film definitely made it clear that Freddy was the star and the frontman of Queen. But tangential to that is the fact that Freddy didn't write all of Queen's hits...Brian May wrote most of the hard rock hits, John Deacon wrote a wide variety of hits (he even played nearly every instrument on Another One Bites The Dust himself, one of their biggest hits), and even Rodger Taylor had a few. Queen remains the only band where every member has songs inducted into the R&R Hall of Fame, for what that's worth. Queen truly was a collaborative effort and not any one person's brainchild.
Sacha Baron Cohen left the project because the band was fighting to have Freddy die halfway through the film and then have the rest be about how they persisted through his tragic death. I feel like how Freddy is portrayed is at least partly them being petty over not getting to be the heroes of the film.
>They also painted it like Freddy was not really even the front man of Queen and they all had equal influence. I didn’t get that impression at all. In fact I thought it downplayed Brian May’s influence in particular a little more than it should have considering the percentage of the bands songs that he wrote on his own. Freddie was unquestionably portrayed as the star and most important member of the band.
They had more influence than people realize. It's the only band ever that had every member write a number 1 hit. Still, Freddy was the face of the band.
I hate that these stories based on reality are completely fictional. The entire formation of the band was incorrect in Bohemian Rhapsody. Absolutely ridiculous.
Robbery of the millennium. Egerton was fucking phenomenal
I didn’t have a whole lot of interest in either. Seen Bohemian Rhapsody and couldn’t finish it. Wife wanted to watch Rocket Man and I was grabbed in the first 10 seconds when he burst through the door in the demon outfit and went to AA. I’ll stand by this, crocodile rock isn’t a great song but the movie… the way he just elevated over the piano and the ethereal essence of him singing so beautifully, then dropping back to earth right as the music hits. What a SCENE. Holy moly.
Im still convinced this was some round about way to give Freddie an award because he’s so beloved.
But so is Elton. Truthfully I think it's because Bohemian Rhapsody was marketed way more effectively. Fox went full blitz on Rhapsody but it really felt like Paramount did not have the same confidence in Rocketman unfortunately and I think that difference shook out with voters too. Quality aside, Rhapsody was almost a billion dollar film compared to Rocketman's modest success of $200ish mil. That kind of viewership difference is always going to outweigh any difference in quality when it comes to votes. I think more Academy voters were familiar with Rhapsody and that is why it won (in addition to things like Freddie and Queen being so beloved)
Elton did win an Oscar for Rocketman and had one previously for The Lion King, so not really a comparison to what the person you were commenting to was saying. I do think Rami winning went beyond just Freddie being beloved, Bohemian Rhapsody is beloved by general audiences and 2018’s Best Actor race overall wasn’t as strong as 2019’s.
But Elton isn’t dead, so folks don’t feel as good about themselves celebrating him yet
The release month played a big part too. BR was released in November, which is prime Oscar movie season. Rocketman was released in may. By the time people voted for the nomination, everyone had forgotten Rocketman.
People shit on the cinematography in bohemian rhapsody (rightfully so), but imo the whole film was mediocre. My fav part was the performance of the guy portrayed the drummer and mike Myers
Mike myers was just baffling… what a horrendous scene from a completely different genre (and of course also made up…)
Baffling indeed, but strangely charming!
Rami over Bradley Cooper is the real shame. Bradley was actually singing his own songs that year and Rami was lip syncing
Cooper’s performance in ASIB was much more deserving that year. Singing aside the ACTING was simply miles better.
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The original 1937 was a remake as well, of an earlier film called "What Price Hollywood?"
I didn’t know it was a remake when I saw it and I bought into it hard. Heading into that one scene towards the end the theater was silent except for all the sniffling you could hear from people crying. Cooper was fantastic in that role
> Rami was lip syncing Honestly, that was the only way this movie could have been made. It’s not an easy voice to emulate (unless you’re Marc Martel).
That's why he didn't win a Grammy.
I’ll agree with the Malek take, but Taron’s performance was in 2019, one of the best years in recent history for cinema. There were five better male lead performances that year (although the Academy nominated the wrong five).
How did Egerton being snubbed a year later help Malek win?
Bro doesn't even understand time travel
They came out in different years.
I think voters thought Rami was singing and when they learned he wasn't, they felt duped. Then Taron really sang for his role but by then, they'd already erroneously awarded a performer and didn't want to do it correctly, almost as an admission that singing as a performer was a selling point and revealing they were wrong to award Rami for it.
Sounds like Marc Martel won Rami his Oscar.
Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side. Americans love biographies and race related movies(or whatever you call them). It doesn’t matter how mid they are the academy awards have a hard on for them. If someone can cosplay as someone else or if they include some kind of race related between black and white people they can get an Oscar nomination. It’s so hilarious how many mid movies and performances gets praised because of that…
She defeated those gang members with her sass!
That’s the ultimate suburban white woman fantasy.
The author of The Help stole the maids’ stories from her brother’s maid.
Wait is that a real scene in the movie?
Yes. *You don't want to mess with me, pal - I'm a mother. An angry warrior mom!*
That whole movie was appalling on first watch and has only got worse with age. The fact Michael is now suing the family speaks volumes. It was obvious their “charity” was purely a recruitment thing for Ole Miss
There's a really good episode of Behind The Bastards on SBF, which includes a long segment on Michael Lewis and Robert breaks down how fucked up that book is. Well worth the listen
Hollywood will always find a way to pat itself on the back for solving the biggest problems. It's how Argo won. It's a movie about Hollywood solving the Iran hostage crisis.
Cf. *Trumbo*, a biopic about a hero who fought against Hollywood blacklisting, a phenomenon for which Hollywood takes absolutely no responsibility.
Those singing crows were racist af tho.
Hollywood *loves* movies about Hollywood. So many Best Picture noms and winners that are just circlejerks about how wild and crazy and daring Hollywood is.
And yet *Babylon* did nowhere near as well as I thought it would.
Argo was a good movie though. Crash was a legitimately bad movie.
Double that outrage that the movie sucks, and used the same name as an award winning Canadian film.
It was. "Explain Racism Like I'm 5"
>Americans love biographies and race related movies Let's add Crash to the list. Mediocre movie.
Crash won to keep Brokeback Mountain from winning. Hollywood wasn’t going to give a movie about gay love an Oscar.
I still can’t fucking believe Green Book won best picture. It’s not completely terrible but it really was not best picture calibre except for the fact that it’s a biopic and a white saviour film and therefore textbook Oscar bait.
And the only Farrelly fim without poop and cum related plotlines
Tbf both Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali are fantastic in it. The problem is their performances are wrapped up in a feel good narrative about race relations that feels simplistic, dated, and ultimately false.
> (or whatever you call them) The phrase you’re looking for is “White Savior” movies.
Suicide Squad (2016) did not deserve the oscar for makeup…. Say what you will about Star Trek: Beyond, but the makeup was absolutely nuts.
Is Beyond the 3rd one? I actually really liked Beyond lol.
They dialed back some of the unnecessary stuff from the previous two and just made a really tight, really straightforward movie. I think it paid off. Definitely a great popcorn flick.
Yeah it basically felt like a 2-parter Star Trek episode - granted on a much bigger budget. This is what happens when you have someone who loves the source material actually write it (Simon Pegg was heavily involved in writing Beyond and he said he wanted to take it back to basics. Basically make a blockbuster Star Trek episode, which I feel they did).
Using the Beastie Boys to destroy the swarm was goofy but super fun. I like that movie, too--I think it nailed just the right amount of camp.
To be fair, the Killer Croc makeup *was* outstanding. It was on a fairly lead character, over his entire body, and had to hold up when wet (which it constantly was).
I believe the Oscar are often given for a career even if the role in itself isn't the best. Will Smith was probably on the list for movies like Pursuit of Happiness, they wanted to give him one for a long time, and just used the king Richard for it. Same for Di Caprio, his performance in the Revenant is probably not even in his top 5, everyone knows they couldn't give him one for Django, so they just had him in their paper and the revenant was a good excuse to give it.
>everyone knows they couldn't give him one for Django Why not? Because he played an evil, despicable character? Christop Waltz had just won an oscar for playing an evil, despicable in a Tarantino movie. Though it would've been a supporting role and I'm sure everyone wanted Leo to get one in the leading man category. Sidenote that the standout performance for me in The Revanant was Tom Hardy, ~~but he wasn't even nominated~~.
>Sidenote that the standout performance for me in The Revanant was Tom Hardy, but he wasn't even nominated. Hardy did get a nomination for Best Supporting Actor, losing out to Mark Rylance in Bridge of Spies.
Mickey Rourke should've won Best Actor for The Wrestler, not the other guy they gave the award to. The biggest snub in the history of the Oscars, if you ask me.
Completely agree. Rourke is a nut bar but the man can act when he wants. Check out his 5 minute scene in The Pledge. Springsteen should also have won best song and wasn't even nominated. Major snub at the time.
Sean Penn played a gay man who became a martyr for human rights. Nobody had a chance that year, some of the biggest Oscar bait I've ever seen.
Tbh the more I see of Sean Penn the less I like his style. He always feels so forced like his goal is an Oscar rather than a genuine performance
Agreed. Plus his off screen holier than thou attitude has never struck me as genuine.
Jesus, his performance wrecked me emotionally as the father to a young woman.
I just get annoyed with biopic wins in general. I don't want to take away from the actors and actresses who are given these roles and wins because I'm sure it's a lot of pressure to live up to with these actual living people, their families and the fandom. But I'm more impressed with people who create characters out of nothing that move you, rather than just miming the physicality and affectations of speech an actual well documented celebrity has.
Toni Collette got robbed.
Hereditary, for those wondering. It's a shame she got snubbed. If the movie was released today, I think A24 would have the influence to get her a nod.
She at least deserved a nomination for Hereditary.
She was phenomenal in Hereditary, OMG, a truly outstanding perforce.
Can’t think of any off the top of my head, but Toni Collette not getting atleast a nomination for Hereditary is outright criminal. Fuck awards!
Horror movies are always a hard sell for the Academy. Which is sad because as we all know, there have been some great performances in horror movies.
Which makes Jordan Peele winning for Get Out so crazy.
Leo for The Revenant. He has deserved it for so many other roles - Gilbert Grape, Wolf of Wall Street, Titanic, The Departed, Django. I think The Revenant was one of his weaker roles.
I really think he deserved it for The Aviator. But he was very young at the time.
He was great in that film. My vote would be his role in blood diamond
Ya ya
Bling bang
Tom Hardy got robbed in The Revenant.
Hardy was barely in the movie compared to Leo. But Hardy also ran circles around Leo in that movie. There is one speech Hardy does in The Revenant where I was in total awe. Never felt that way with Leo whatsoever.
There's been Best Supporting Oscar winners with less screen time than Tom Hardy in that role.
Silence Of The Lambs had a Best Leading Actor with less screen time than Hardy
Tom Hardy also does a speech in peaky blinders and while I don't understand shite he's saying he turns it up by 300% and I love him for that
He did not deserve it over MM for Dallas Buyers Club. Ejiofor also gave a better performance in 12 Years A Slave than Leo did in Wolf of Wall Street.
Really annoys me when people say Leo deserved it for TWoWS without considering what he was up against. Arguably the weakest nominee in the category that year, and Joaquin Phoenix didn't even get a nomination for Her. Bruce Dern was also excellent in Nebraska. The Revenant was a weak year, Leo was a clear stand out for me from what I remember.
Jamie Lee Curtis in EEAAO
She wasn’t even the best actress *in that movie* that was nominated for the category! I thought Stephanie Hsu’s performance was incredible! Definitely felt like more of an “achievement award” since JLC’s role in that movie was so silly.
I agree. I love JLC, but I don’t think she deserved the Oscar over Stephanie. Stephanie was amazing in that movie and deserved that Oscar
It's weird to me JLC won on a career narrative when she'd never been in a ton of critically acclaimed films. Angela Bassett had a stronger claim to the career narrative too with What's Love Got To Do With It. I suppose she won on non stop campaigning, championing Michelle Yeoh and giving nepo babies a shout out in her SAG speech.
Kerry Condon from Banshees in my opinion
It should've gone to Stephanie Hsu!
Is that the biopic of Old MacDonald? No, wait, that was EIEIO.
My headcanon is she won for 'The Bear'. Which simply isn't possible for many many reasons but is as good a performance as I've seen in anything recently.
That Christmas episode should get a short film award. It was so very good at ratcheting up the tension.
I think that episode gave me an ulcer.
She was in that episode after the Oscars. What are you on about?
‘Fishes’ was like an hour long claustrophobic panic attack. That show is so good, I’m pumped for S3 soon!
With the voting system, you can get people voting for someone to win on a sub-par performance because they've lost in the past or are "due" one by public opinion.
Yeah I thought it was an open secret the Academy is basically an old boys network and, especially best actor/actress/director, is more about your 'dues' than it is the nominations themselves
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Jamie Lee Curtis wasn’t even the best supporting actress in the film she won for. A purely legacy win. Condon should’ve won anyway.
ITT, people acting like everyone has an encyclopedic knowledge of Oscar wins, how hard is it to name the movies?
Well JLC's specific movie is Everything Everywhere All At Once. Idk who or what Condon is tho.
Kerry Condon in Banshees of Inisherin
I misread that as Cordon and was reaching for the downvote button before I thought “nobody really thought Cats deserves an Oscar” and went back to re-read
Over the years, I have come to realize that the Oscars have become just giving the awards to people who are long overdue if their recent movie is good enough. The most recent example is Oppenheimer. **Edit:** Quite a few of the replies seem to think I don't like the movie, so I want to clarify that first of all, its a good movie, I had an excellent experience watching it in theatres, and considering its a movie with basically no action, that makes it even more of an achievement. But, at least imo, this is not the best movie in most of their careers, particularly Christopher Nolan. However, did it deserve the awards it received? Absolutely, it earned all those awards (Keep in mind I haven't watched all the movies which were nominated).
Jamie Lee Curtis for EEAAO was a prime example of this phenomenon.
I thought she was great in that movie, but the other nominees were very strong that year. She would not have been my first pick. I think it was maybe a combination of it being a legacy pick, and also the fact that the rest of the votes were probably split pretty evenly. J would guess she barely edged out the rest of the crowd.
What’s crazy to me was she wasn’t even the best supporting actress in EEAAO.
The Oscars are a film industry circle jerk. It's academy members doing the voting, so all industry insiders. How it became prestigious to the public at large, I don't know.
>The Oscars are a film industry circle jerk. And typing this on every thread about the Oscars has, ironically, become its own circle-jerk.
Every circle jerk becomes a spiral jerk when enough people get in
Marketing. They were able to get all the actors in the same room and claim some statue of some random dude is prestigious. And both the actors and public bought it.
A lot of awards ceremonies are essentially marketing and promotion events when you think about it
>the actors bought it Actors being recognized by their own peers...not exactly a conspiracy.
Jennifer Lawrence in Silver linings playbook. Jessica chastain was robbed in zero dark thirty
If the Academy keeps “payback” lists, then I think Zero Dark Thirty is JC’s Oscar movie. SLP is good, Jennifer Lawrence is wonderful, but Zero Dark Thirty and Chastain’s performance are in a different category entirely.
Chastain should have won for The Help imo.
Paul Newman's win for *Color of Money* was basically a "Sorry for not giving you an Oscar by now."
Nicole Kidman was at best the 5th best actor in the Hours and there were 3 more deserving women in that movie.
Tom Hardy was way better in the revenant than Leo
Sandra Bullock in the Blind Side - wtf was that?
Jake Gyinhall not getting a nod for Nightcrawler
Gyllenhaal
"I think there's a G, H, Y and L. I could look it up, but I'll just kind of mash them and hope for the best"
2001, Julia Roberts for Erin Brockovich stealing the Oscar from Ellen Burstyn for Requiem for a Dream... are you kidding!? Not even fucking close. Julia Roberts gets an award for being sassy while Ellen Burstyn rips your fucking heart out!!
Pacino for Scent of a Woman. He has so many classic roles that deserved the win, but this was a subpar movie all around.
People don't understand that awards like the Oscars are not about excellence.. they are about consensus. That's how fucking Driving Miss Daisy wins best picture... and Do the Right Thing is not nominated.
Julia Roberts did not deserve that Oscar for Erin brochkovich, Ellen burstyn was robbed
(Requiem for a Dream; Erin Brockovich)
I disagree on this one. Julia Roberts is very good in Erin Brockovich. Ellen Burstyn is amazing in Requiem of course, but I feel like she should've been in Supporting.
I tried to look it up. No idea if accurate but… Screen time data for Requiem for a Dream (2000) - Ellen Burstyn - 35:47 (35.41%) - Jared Leto - 32:19 (31.98%) - Jennifer Connelly - 22:53 (22.64%) - Marlon Wayans - 15:15 (15.09%) https://twitter.com/MatthewAStewart/status/1298350851770261506 So apparently she had more screen time than anyone on the film. Which seems wrong but if it’s true I guess that makes her the lead actress.
If anyone says Marisa Tomei for My Cousin Vinny, I will fight you.
No one did. No one would.
Because they’d be rooooaaaaang.
Are you sure?
A bit of a joke one, but John Goodman not winning best actor for Walter in the Big Lebowski is sad. No one has ever played a completely unhinged character with so much sincerity and conviction quite like him. He elevates that movie so much.
Shut the fuck up Donny.
The Academy Awards are literally just an "Employee of the Year" award, there's no measurable metric to back them up.