Kicking Off the Fall Season

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Precious Doll
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Re: Kicking Off the Fall Season

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criddic3 wrote:
Mister Tee wrote: Anne Thompson has proclaimed Incredibles 2 the leader for animated feature, which I think is wrong on two counts – first, that (as BJ has documented) Pixar sequels are 0-for-nomination to date, and, second, that Isle of Dogs, as a well-reviewed original effort, would seem a much more likely choice.
Toy Story 3
I think most people disregard the Toy Story 3 nomination/win because when the first two Toy Story films were released the animated category did not exist, as opposed to Finding Nemo & Cars.
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Re: Kicking Off the Fall Season

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Mister Tee wrote: Anne Thompson has proclaimed Incredibles 2 the leader for animated feature, which I think is wrong on two counts – first, that (as BJ has documented) Pixar sequels are 0-for-nomination to date, and, second, that Isle of Dogs, as a well-reviewed original effort, would seem a much more likely choice.
Toy Story 3
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Re: Kicking Off the Fall Season

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Precious Doll wrote:About 20 minutes before the end some of the audience members, I suspect a group that were together, started openly mocking the film verbally and laughing at it. As by that time I was just basically waiting around for the wretched thing to end I didn't say anything to them. Neither did anyone else. There was also a lot of people yelling out at the end that the film was crap and so on, something I've very rarely seen at the cinema beyond festival screenings.
.
More or less what happened at the cinema I saw it in - except that here they started yelling much earlier (I guess Italians are less patient than Australians..!). It's never nice, never polite, I know - but in this case I didn't complain. The movie was so boringly bad that at least the audience's mocking it (somethig the critics should have done, but didn't) made the whole experience a bit funnier.
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Re: Kicking Off the Fall Season

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Mister Tee wrote: Anne Thompson has proclaimed Incredibles 2 the leader for animated feature, which I think is wrong on two counts – first, that (as BJ has documented) Pixar sequels are 0-for-nomination to date, and, second, that Isle of Dogs, as a well-reviewed original effort, would seem a much more likely choice. .
Incredibles 2 might be the film to break the Pixar sequel curse, Oscar wise.

I would just like to also add that the Foreign Language category is usually rather perilous. Last year I had A Fantastic Woman pegged as the winner in June - number of factors why.

I'll put my neck out even further this year. I fully expect three particular films to make the final five: Shoplifters (Japan), which Japan has already submitted and two films whose countries have yet to submit films but I have no doubt they will select: Woman at War (Iceland) & Capharnaüm (Lebanon). And this year there will be no clear winner in this category.
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Re: Kicking Off the Fall Season

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ITALIANO wrote:
Mister Tee wrote: The other prime hopeful is Toni Collette for Hereditary, about whom I’ll be able to speak more knowledgeably next week when the film hits Netflix. Purely from yards off: Collette’s personal notices seem stellar, but she’ll be fighting genre-aversion and some apparently visceral audience revulsion (that D+ Cinemascore can’t be ignored). Her best hope would be to become a critical cause celebre when December rolls around, which could push her onto the ballot a la Isabelle Huppert. It would also of course help if the competition remains thin. Honestly, I don’t know what to make of her candidacy. Perhaps I’ll change my mind a week from now.
Watch it - AYOR.
It's the kind of movie that young critics - and not-so-young critics who know better but want to be perceived as "hip" - like. They like it becayse they have to - but when you read their reviews, you feel between the lines that they aren't sincere. The audience I saw it with was more sincere, laughing and screaming most of the time, which I must admit made the experience a bit less boring than it could have been. But the movie is, needless to say, terrible. Terrible AND pretentious (a word which admittedly I hate when others apply it to some great movies, but which I must use now, especially as the movie is far from great.
As for Toni Collette, she has a very strong scene at one point - sitting at one of those American meetings for people who have lost a family member, and talking about her personal experience. It shows how good and subtle she can be. Sadly, the rest of her performance is probably the worst ever by a good actress since, say, Isabelle Adjani's in Possession. She shouts and shrieks with bulging eyes, definitely committed to he character, but no less ridiculous for that. And yes, I know that it's partly intentional, but, I mean, even grotesque can be executed with style.
The Academy will hate the movie. She will be nominated only if today's crazed critics really support her, and if the Actress field is poor this year.
I only saw Hereditary because of the 'buzz' it received on the internet when it premiered at Sundance. Things like 'scariest film ever made' and what not did pipe up my interest. I found the entire enterprise almost virtually unremittingly unwatchable and cannot for the life of me see what the fuss is about Toni Collette's performance. And that it clocked in at over 2 hours long didn't help. I've even been wandering if I saw some other version of the film.

I get very annoyed at people talking, etc during films and basically tell them to shut up. In extreme cases I leave the cinema and ask for my money back! About 20 minutes before the end some of the audience members, I suspect a group that were together, started openly mocking the film verbally and laughing at it. As by that time I was just basically waiting around for the wretched thing to end I didn't say anything to them. Neither did anyone else. There was also a lot of people yelling out at the end that the film was crap and so on, something I've very rarely seen at the cinema beyond festival screenings.

I don't go to many horror films. They started developing a sameness sometime ago, though I have seen trailers for various films and this looked like more of the same.

Nothing that the Academy does would surprise me, so given the hype a nomination of Collette isn't out of the question but I would be hard pressed to find a more undeserving acting nominee.
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Re: Kicking Off the Fall Season

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flipp525 wrote:
Adam McKay’s still-untitled movie about Dick Cheney.
Isn’t the Dick Cheney biopic called Backseat
Sometimes? It's been called that at earlier points, and may end up that way, but it's fluctuated -- in the EW Fall Preview, it's listed as Dick Cheney Untitled.
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Re: Kicking Off the Fall Season

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Adam McKay’s still-untitled movie about Dick Cheney.
Isn’t the Dick Cheney biopic called Backseat
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Re: Kicking Off the Fall Season

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Mister Tee wrote: The other prime hopeful is Toni Collette for Hereditary, about whom I’ll be able to speak more knowledgeably next week when the film hits Netflix. Purely from yards off: Collette’s personal notices seem stellar, but she’ll be fighting genre-aversion and some apparently visceral audience revulsion (that D+ Cinemascore can’t be ignored). Her best hope would be to become a critical cause celebre when December rolls around, which could push her onto the ballot a la Isabelle Huppert. It would also of course help if the competition remains thin. Honestly, I don’t know what to make of her candidacy. Perhaps I’ll change my mind a week from now.
Watch it - AYOR.
It's the kind of movie that young critics - and not-so-young critics who know better but want to be perceived as "hip" - like. They like it becayse they have to - but when you read their reviews, you feel between the lines that they aren't sincere. The audience I saw it with was more sincere, laughing and screaming most of the time, which I must admit made the experience a bit less boring than it could have been. But the movie is, needless to say, terrible. Terrible AND pretentious (a word which admittedly I hate when others apply it to some great movies, but which I must use now, especially as the movie is far from great.
As for Toni Collette, she has a very strong scene at one point - sitting at one of those American meetings for people who have lost a family member, and talking about her personal experience. It shows how good and subtle she can be. Sadly, the rest of her performance is probably the worst ever by a good actress since, say, Isabelle Adjani's in Possession. She shouts and shrieks with bulging eyes, definitely committed to he character, but no less ridiculous for that. And yes, I know that it's partly intentional, but, I mean, even grotesque can be executed with style.
The Academy will hate the movie. She will be nominated only if today's crazed critics really support her, and if the Actress field is poor this year.
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Kicking Off the Fall Season

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This week/weekend, with the launch of Venice and Telluride, we mark the official beginning of it’s-for-real-now Oscar season. I suppose I’ve said something like this in other recent years, but, in terms of major categories (film/director/performances), it feels as if we’re starting from close to ground zero – waiting for these festivals to fill in what’s, right now, close to a blank slate.

That’s not to say there’s nothing with staying power currently on display – we can point to a few top category possibilities, and I’ll note them shortly. But the field feels less densely populated than almost any other year this decade. In some recent years, pre-Labor Day, we’ve had prime top five candidates out in the marketplace: Midnight in Paris, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Boyhood, Dunkirk -- and a few others that turned out top five though some of us weren’t sure of them: Mad Max: Fury Road and Get Out. We’ve also had top-flight acting contenders already seen at this point – Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s Bone, Annette Bening in The Kids Are All Right, Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine.

Moreover, even in years with nothing major out and seen, we’ve usually had our interest piqued by as-yet unreleased titles that registered strongly at early year festivals – Sundance offering Brooklyn, Manchester by the Sea and Call Me by Your Name, and Cannes bringing The Artist, Nebraska and Carol (plus, to show early Oscar buzz can fizzle, All is Lost and Inside Llewyn Davis).

This year, we don’t have much of the latter. Sundance didn’t offer any real breakouts. The films warmly-enough received – Eighth Grade, Sorry to Bother You, Leave No Trace -- all have had summer releases that, to my eyes, fell somewhere short of make-it-to-the-Oscars level (apart from maybe screenplay). At Cannes, meanwhile, films evoking the strongest response (with one exception) were mostly foreign-language efforts, which we know are unlikely to score heavily outside the foreign film category.

Though, to jump over to the candidates we do have…that one exception is probably our strongest best picture candidate so far: Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman. I admit, I underestimated this one coming out of Cannes – I didn’t think reviews were enthusiastic enough to propel it fully into the race. But it sits now at an 83 on MetaCritic (definite best picture territory), its grosses seem like they’ll end up $50 million or better (Spike’s best in some time), and, from the reactions of AMPAS/SAG voters I know, it’s going over well with audiences. I see the film easily making the expanded slate, putting Spike at least into the screenwriting slot, and possibly getting him his long-sought directing nod. John David Washington would be a long shot in lead – he carries the film commandingly, but doesn’t have any really big scenes. Adam Driver, though, because he’s the one directly dealing with Klan folk, DOES have those scenes – a couple of tense confrontations, plus a touching monologue that Lee gives the full close-up treatment. I can easily see him getting a supporting nod.

As BJ suggested in his earlier half-year post, it’ll be interesting to see what impact the success of Lee’s film has on the candidacy of the great looming behemoth, Black Panther (along with still-to-come, possibly strong Oscar follow-ups from Steve McQueen and Barry Jenkins). Klansman offers the much-desired diversity, but won’t have to leapfrog past voter resistance to get nominated…it’s a standard realistic dramatic film (with a kick), the sort the Oscars have often honored. Same with the McQueen and Jenkins films, if they turn out to be good. Panther, on the other hand, as an action/super-hero effort, has to count on a big enough groundswell from the entertainment/industrial complex to push past that resistance. Being the prime standard-bearer for diversity would have been a strong selling point. But if there are multiple solid efforts made/by featuring black artists, Black Panther may look more like what a lot of us have always felt it is: an enjoyable enough but mostly standard Marvel film, distinguished mainly by cultural make-up, for which praise got a bit out of hand last winter. From this juncture, I see Panther as only an iffy prospect for the expanded best picture slate, with I’d say a less than 50/50 shot at the directing nod. (Mad Max: Fury Road is its only precedent, and that had an LA Critics Award, something Panther is unlikely to replicate.) I do think the film will do very well below the line (unless the Marvel avoidance BJ has noted kicks in) – a bundle of tech nominations seems quite possible. One question I put out there -- do we need to consider the possibility of a Michael B. Jordan nomination in support? I think Jordan’s a good actor, but this idea honestly hadn’t crossed my mind till a week or so ago, when I read a seemingly legit piece comparing his work to Ledger in Dark Knight and Bardem in No Country. Is anyone else hearing this (to me insane) notion? Will there be a serious push for him?

The strongest performance candidate I see out there is Glenn Close in the lead actress category. The children at Awards Watch are already touting her up as a shoo-in, which is ridiculous: her film is small, and its grosses don’t suggest any more audience enthusiasm than something like that for Tomlin’s Grandma. However…Close has received truly stellar reviews – her best in a long, long time – and not a few of them have noted her long, Oscar-less history with the Academy. If the category ends up sparsely populated – and after three consecutive years of bountiful best actress fields, we could be due an off-year – Close’s narrative, plus legitimately impressive notices, could lead her to a career award not unlike Julianne Moore’s. In any case, I think her nomination is extremely likely.

The other prime hopeful is Toni Collette for Hereditary, about whom I’ll be able to speak more knowledgeably next week when the film hits Netflix. Purely from yards off: Collette’s personal notices seem stellar, but she’ll be fighting genre-aversion and some apparently visceral audience revulsion (that D+ Cinemascore can’t be ignored). Her best hope would be to become a critical cause celebre when December rolls around, which could push her onto the ballot a la Isabelle Huppert. It would also of course help if the competition remains thin. Honestly, I don’t know what to make of her candidacy. Perhaps I’ll change my mind a week from now.

In the screenplay categories, I see BlacKkKlansman as a strong contender. The Death of Stalin and Leave No Trace aren’t completely without chance – though much will depend on how the adaptation/original divide breaks. On the original side, I do believe one of the Sundance efforts could hang on and get noticed – Eighth Grade is likely more loved, but Sorry to Bother You has the novel-concept going for it. Of course, if the category is anywhere near as crowded as last year, both could be out of luck.

The below the line categories sit basically where BJ put them at end of June: Panther is the most likely to get a batch of techs; Ready Player One could rack up the sort of nods Spielberg commercial efforts often do (visual effects, both sounds, production design); A Quiet Place seems a candidate for both sounds and possibly editing. Anne Thompson has proclaimed Incredibles 2 the leader for animated feature, which I think is wrong on two counts – first, that (as BJ has documented) Pixar sequels are 0-for-nomination to date, and, second, that Isle of Dogs, as a well-reviewed original effort, would seem a much more likely choice. Finally, the documentary category remains easily the most competitive so far – RBG, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, and Three Identical Strangers have all garnered such critical praise and significant grosses that any one of them would be runaway front-runner in a leaner year.

ON EDIT: I realized after posting that I'd neglected to mention Crazy Rich Asians, which appears to be turning into some sort of box-office phenomenon -- an August sleeper whose grosses are in the same range as The Help. Since the film is a rom-com, I doubt it has the Oscar penetration of that earlier effort, but out-sized surprise hits have been known to slip into Academy slots. Perhaps what Franz Ferdinand says is correct: this is what that new proposed Popular Film category is for.

The above is how I see things standing today. But this is, of course, the most ephemeral of interim reports. Literally within 72 hours – most definitely by sunset on Labor Day – the landscape will look significantly different, filling in to a staggering degree. Venice and Telluride reviews will lock in a goodly number of films (and knock an equivalent number out). For me, this is often the most fun part of the year, as a whole bunch of possibles run the gauntlet and prove themselves either contenders or pretenders. In a year with so little on the board to date, it should be even more entertaining.

So…which films seem most promising of those to appear this week? Starting with Venice: Enthusiastic word has been out for a while about A Star is Born, and, though I feel no great need to sit through this story a fourth time, I have to say the trailer makes it look like a strong contender (especially for, once again, lead actor and actress). There appears to be strong buzz for Roma, which certainly rings true for an Alfonso Cuaron fan like myself -- though the fact it’s in Spanish and will be released by Netflix makes me wonder if it’s really likely to be an Oscar juggernaut. There’s equally strong buzz, surprisingly, about The Favourite. I’m sure I’m not alone in questioning a Lanthimos film as an Oscar hopeful. But, I’ve seen lots of seemingly-on-the-edge directors unexpectedly cross over to become Academy favorites – the Coens, van Sant, Soderbergh, McQueen – so I have my hopes up. We’ll also see the latest from Chazelle (First Man), the Coens (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs), Audiard (The Sisters Brothers), Greengrass (22 July) and Guadagnino (Suspiria) – though it should be noted that last one appears to have some murderous buzz around it.

Telluride’s final program won’t be made public until tomorrow, but, assuming rumors turn out true, we’ll see some of the Venice entries get further response (Roma, The Favourite and First Man), but also some fresh blood. We’ll find out if my trailer-induced instinct about Can You Ever Forgive Me? has any validity (it seems a solid vehicle for Melissa McCarthy and long-overdue Richard E. Grant). The Front Runner is Jason Reitman’s film about local former Senator Gary Hart (whose scandal is old news for lots of us, but might be fresh for younger audiences). David Lowery’s The Old Man and the Gun is, allegedly, Robert Redford’s farewell acting appearance, which creates instant interest. Mid 90's is Jonah Hill’s directorial debut; hard to tell if his invite here is deference-to-fame, or a sign he’s got something going. White Boy Rick seems like it might offer Matthew McConaughey his best post-Dallas Buyers’ role. Destroyer (Karen Kusama) and Boy Erased (Joel Edgerton) are two Nicole Kidman vehicles that might be of interest.

After Telluride, the season continues three days later with the opening of the Toronto Film Festival. Toronto has had its thunder stolen by Venice and, especially, Telluride in recent years, but this time out it seems to have a batch of strong premieres. Felix Van Groeningen’s Beautiful Boy looks to have another impressive performance by Timothee Chalamet. Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk and Steve McQueen’s Widows will both be unveiled here. Ben is Back has Peter Hedges directing his son Chris. The Land of Steady Habits is Nicole Holofcener’s latest. And, of course, there’s always the possibility of a surprise emerging – last year at this time, Lady Bird and I, Tonya weren’t even on my radar.

Even that’s not the end of it, with any number of hopefuls left to be screened before the December scrim: Rami Malek playing Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody (this one might show up at Telluride), Adam McKay’s still-untitled movie about Dick Cheney, Ronan and Robbie in Mary Queen of Scots, Felicity Jones as RBG in On The Basis of Sex. (Odd, how the biopics that usually flood Toronto seem to be holding back this year).

I could take stabs at which of these films might yield acting nominations, but why not wait a week or so, and work from solid information rather than tea leaves? Much more on this as the reviews roll in.
Last edited by Mister Tee on Tue Aug 28, 2018 5:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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