Have you ever watched a Kevin Costner film? I mean talk about the shittiest A-lister out there...
Brad Pitt's not as bad as all that. I think he's done solid work, not necessarily exemplary, but he's at least charismatic and sometimes fun to watch. Kevin Costner's a train wreck of whole unfathomable proportions.
The Assassination of Jesse James: The Poll
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Mister Tee
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Way late, and in the visually-lesser form of home viewing, I've finally caught up with this.
I feel the ambivalence about it that several others have expressed. I had no doubt I was watching something quite special; I also had no doubt it was way too damn long and slow, and would have been a better -- maybe extraordinary -- movie with a 15-minute trim and clearer plot logistics in the first hour. I was deeply confused about who the male characters (apart from Pitt, Affleck and Shepard) were -- who was whose cousin and what they were doing at assorted times. BJ is right that this all sets up the later activities, but for me it came in confusing fashion, and thus worked against the film's effectiveness rather than for it. Maybe something as simple as casting actors with more radically different looks (or putting them in more distinctive costumes) would have helped. I can only say I was drifting until the central Ford/James dynamic took hold later in the film.
I understand the invocation of Malick, since he, too, is given to languorous pacing, but, as BJ says, it's an incomplete comparison. If Malick were as interested in story, dialogue and characters as he is in the landscape, this is the sort of film he'd make (Malick's films, much as I'm excited by them, always seem pretty vague in those other areas). Dominik, by contrast, seems to love words as much as images (Perhaps too much so. The voice-over passages are striking -- they made me think, Wow, this must have been some book -- but, like Sonic, I wonder if some of them were there in violation of Screenwriting 101's Visualize/Don't Talk Precept) And as far as characters, though I had problems with subsidiary ones, I think no doubt Jesse and the two Fords are extremely drawn, and I felt more for their fates than I have for any characters in any Malick film.
What Dominick shares with Malick is a feeling for the outdoors -- the film is stunningly shot, no doubt -- and an affinity for the mythic. This is a film that takes a shopworn subject and finds new ways to explore and interpret it, telling us much about ourselves and our society. That makes this a major film, even if I have problems with it.
As for the great Lead or Not Lead debate -- I don't think the argument that Ford is the actual leads holds up that well. Italiano is correct that Affleck disappears for quite a stretch early on in the film where Pitt is dominant. That Affleck lives on and is the subject of the film's final 20 minutes may be playing tricks with some people's minds. I can only say that, having been alerted to this controversy ahead of time, my feeling was Pitt and Affleck are clear co-leads. The shunting of Affleck to supporting is of course based on star power, with a bit of "subordinate characters are supporting characters" rationalization -- the same thinking that made Haing S. Ngor a supporting winner for The Killing Fields when he was every bit the lead Sam Waterson was.
For me, one unfortunate aspect of this debate is, it's kept man people from noticing that this is Brad Pitt's best performance in quite some time. I'd consider both him and Affleck worth nominating.
I feel the ambivalence about it that several others have expressed. I had no doubt I was watching something quite special; I also had no doubt it was way too damn long and slow, and would have been a better -- maybe extraordinary -- movie with a 15-minute trim and clearer plot logistics in the first hour. I was deeply confused about who the male characters (apart from Pitt, Affleck and Shepard) were -- who was whose cousin and what they were doing at assorted times. BJ is right that this all sets up the later activities, but for me it came in confusing fashion, and thus worked against the film's effectiveness rather than for it. Maybe something as simple as casting actors with more radically different looks (or putting them in more distinctive costumes) would have helped. I can only say I was drifting until the central Ford/James dynamic took hold later in the film.
I understand the invocation of Malick, since he, too, is given to languorous pacing, but, as BJ says, it's an incomplete comparison. If Malick were as interested in story, dialogue and characters as he is in the landscape, this is the sort of film he'd make (Malick's films, much as I'm excited by them, always seem pretty vague in those other areas). Dominik, by contrast, seems to love words as much as images (Perhaps too much so. The voice-over passages are striking -- they made me think, Wow, this must have been some book -- but, like Sonic, I wonder if some of them were there in violation of Screenwriting 101's Visualize/Don't Talk Precept) And as far as characters, though I had problems with subsidiary ones, I think no doubt Jesse and the two Fords are extremely drawn, and I felt more for their fates than I have for any characters in any Malick film.
What Dominick shares with Malick is a feeling for the outdoors -- the film is stunningly shot, no doubt -- and an affinity for the mythic. This is a film that takes a shopworn subject and finds new ways to explore and interpret it, telling us much about ourselves and our society. That makes this a major film, even if I have problems with it.
As for the great Lead or Not Lead debate -- I don't think the argument that Ford is the actual leads holds up that well. Italiano is correct that Affleck disappears for quite a stretch early on in the film where Pitt is dominant. That Affleck lives on and is the subject of the film's final 20 minutes may be playing tricks with some people's minds. I can only say that, having been alerted to this controversy ahead of time, my feeling was Pitt and Affleck are clear co-leads. The shunting of Affleck to supporting is of course based on star power, with a bit of "subordinate characters are supporting characters" rationalization -- the same thinking that made Haing S. Ngor a supporting winner for The Killing Fields when he was every bit the lead Sam Waterson was.
For me, one unfortunate aspect of this debate is, it's kept man people from noticing that this is Brad Pitt's best performance in quite some time. I'd consider both him and Affleck worth nominating.
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FilmFan720
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Perfect rating (****). I have to admit, I stopped seeing films with Brad Pitt in them (he's such a horrible, charmless actor) but I made a point to see this one because of the general adulation from people on this board. And I wasn't disappointed.
The only sad part to this years generally wonderful Academy Awards is that this film didn't receive more attention. It's easily more deserving of a Best Picture nomination than Atonement, Juno or Michael Clayton.
And *cough* Casey Affleck is a fucking lead and should have been nominated there *cough*
Edited By Akash on 1201715728
The only sad part to this years generally wonderful Academy Awards is that this film didn't receive more attention. It's easily more deserving of a Best Picture nomination than Atonement, Juno or Michael Clayton.
And *cough* Casey Affleck is a fucking lead and should have been nominated there *cough*
Edited By Akash on 1201715728
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OscarGuy
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I was trying to stagger these out so they didn't all come at once, but here are the last ones. I'm posting all the ones that were listed on that critics Top 10 list within the Top 20.
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
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The Original BJ
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I agree, though this will probably be my last post on the matter because I see people are getting tired of it (and understandably so).Okri wrote:ITALIANO wrote:Yes, but please, the Academy, and ALL the other groups, have committed worse crimes in their history than putting Casey Affleck in the Best Supporting Actor category!
Maybe. The reason I'm reacting with shock is not aimed at the publicists for pushing Affleck this way (for them, oscar recognition of any kind is great) nor at the academy if they fall for it. It's the critics awards that get me. Whenever this kind of fraud was attempted in the past, it largely failed with critics (Scarlett Johansson for Lost in Translation, Naomi Watts for Mulholland Drive). Maybe I haven't been paying attention long enough, or I'm paying too much attention this year, but this kind of wholesale rewriting of this rules is very startling this year.
I could barely stomach Jake Gyllenhaal and Cate Blanchett's placement, but at least they were the second leads. Their nods didn't make sense, but at least they made MORE sense because another actor had more screen time and the major arc throughout the film. Foxx and Moore's nods were funky, but double-dipping played the major factor in both those cases.
But none of those performances (in addition to the fine examples Okri cites) received critics' recognition. This across-the-board endorsement of Affleck -- with people justifying it by arguing "everyone else is voting for him there so if I don't my vote will be wasted" -- is a rather strange example of groupthink at its most bizarre.
And on that matter, the rest is silence.
Maybe. The reason I'm reacting with shock is not aimed at the publicists for pushing Affleck this way (for them, oscar recognition of any kind is great) nor at the academy if they fall for it. It's the critics awards that get me. Whenever this kind of fraud was attempted in the past, it largely failed with critics (Scarlett Johansson for Lost in Translation, Naomi Watts for Mulholland Drive). Maybe I haven't been paying attention long enough, or I'm paying too much attention this year, but this kind of wholesale rewriting of this rules is very startling this year.ITALIANO wrote:Yes, but please, the Academy, and ALL the other groups, have committed worse crimes in their history than putting Casey Affleck in the Best Supporting Actor category!