Posted on 02/08/2022 7:29:37 AM PST by sphinx
Netflix-backed The Power Of The Dog secured 12 nods including best picture, directing and cinematography as well as four acting nominations for lead actor Benedict Cumberbatch, supporting actors Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smith-McPhee, and actress Kirsten Dunst....
Sci-fi blockbuster Dune received 10 nominations including best picture and across the technical categories for sound, visual effects, cinematography and costume design among others.
Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast and Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story both secured seven nominations, including best picture and directing, while King Richard received six, including best picture and for leading actor for Will Smith, who plays the father of tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams in the biopic.
(Excerpt) Read more at screendaily.com ...
Did Dinesh’s documentary on 1/6 get nominated for documentary?
I stopped watching the Oscars back in the early Nineties when “Shakespeare In Love” won instead of “Saving Private Ryan”.
The last time I watched and actually enjoyed the Oscars was the night that ‘The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King’ did the “clean sweep” and won just about every dang Oscar it was nominated for. I was down in Texas, visiting my in-laws. My late mother-in-law hated Hollywood in general and wasn’t pleased by my watching it. Even so, she let me take over their TV for just that one night.
The last Oscar show I watched was when Neil Patrick Harris hosted it. The first part was pretty good...then he came out on stage in nothing but his underwear. I turned it off after that and haven’t watched it since.
SIL was a wonderful film.
Power of the Dog…the wife & I bailed on this loser halfway through.
Down - Hollyweird hasn’t produced a decent movie in years.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. I liked it, it was pleasant to watch-I just didn’t think it carried the weight of Saving Private Ryan, which I thought was very impactful and meaningful.
Shakespeare In Love was like watching something on television, for me at least.
Haven’t seen too many movies this year
and of the following, 3 are fully or
partially animated:
Tom and Jerry
Clifford the Big Red Dog
Many Saints of Newark: A Sopranos Story
Sing 2
Recent years have had me seeing some
music related movies
Bohemian Rhapsody
Yesterday (what if almost everyone
forgot the Beatles?)
Rocketman
Bohemian Rhapsody
Blinded by the Light (British Springsteen fan)
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (lots of
late 60s pop)
“And the Oscar goes to...La La Land..
No wait. We read the wrong card, actually
it goes to Moonlight”
A bunch of Pixar movies got sent to streaming/ Disney Plus: Soul, Turning Red
(upcoming) so no theatre showings.
AAH yes’ and again we have the nonproductive being awarded by their peers. Sore arms the next day from patting themselves on the back for another year of crap.
Ever notice that there is a “best picture” every year?
Even the years when they all stink.
Ever since the two greatest movies in history got snubbed, “Commando” and “Team America: World Police”, I’ve been boycotting the Oscars.
SPR felt like a compendium of all the war movies Spielberg had ever seen. There was nothing new. I felt the same way about 1917 a few years ago. A run through the standard tropes about WW1.
It’s “best” out of the ones that were available. :)
Artists aren’t productive?
Concur. I went to see “No Time To Die” and it was one of those odd movies where it had a lot of great performances that somehow managed to add up to a lackluster overall experience.
The sum of the parts were greater than the whole.
The evil lair trope is such a tired cliché and this film ran down that well beaten path.
Why would an evil villain these days need a vastly expensive base/lair on a remote island when he could just as easily buy a fairly new but abandoned skyscraper, shopping mall, warehouse, or a factory in virtually any Democrat run city? And then just pay off the Dems with bribes so he gets left alone? That would be totally believable.
The macguffin of the virus with your name on it fell flat in the face of COVID which was a lab created virus with EVERYONE’S name on it. Why not just have Bond raiding a virus lab in China?
Naw, the Bond franchise needs a serious revamp and update to rid itself of the cartoonish elements that may have been entertaining in the 1960’s but that have fallen away sixty years later.
I have seen all the nominees except “Drive My Car” which I haven’t found on any streaming services yet.
My nominee for best picture would definitely be “Dune”. I had all the best elements of drama and narrative that made it an important and historic film.
“Power of the Dog” was a very slow and nuanced period piece. Cumberbatch was amazing but the overall story just didn’t interest me, and I left before the ending although my wife liked it.
A real gem is “Belfast”. It is a very personal account of the child Kenneth Branaugh growing up among the sectarian strife between Protestant and Catholic families living in Belfast in 1969. Kind of “Jo Jo Rabbit” meets Harold Wilson. One special mention would be for an almost unrecognizable Judi Dench who plays the rock-solid Grand Ma with amazing authenticity.
“King Richard” was a straightforward but very satisfying “rags-to-riches” tale about the Williams tennis stars and their rise from Compton to the world stage. Will Smith was great, but I think Cumberbatch will still win out for best actor.
I don’t know why “West Side Story” was nominated. I don’t see why Spielberg tried to improve on this classic and it seemed more like a vanity piece than a fresh take.
I also agree that the remake of the 1947 film noir, “Nightmare Alley” with Bradley Cooper replacing Tyrone Power was a really intense and dark psychological improvement on the original. The 1947 version pulled its punches in its ending and this version went all the way to the Twilight Zone which feels more realistic to a modern audience. Not a nominee but it should have been as an adaptation.
Go Dune!
Plot description of zpower of the Dog:
By the time that Peter comes to stay at the ranch for the summer break, Rose has become an alcoholic. Phil and his men taunt Peter, and he sequesters himself in his room, dissecting animals and studying diseases. In a secluded clearing, Phil masturbates with Bronco Henry’s scarf. Peter enters the clearing and finds a stash of magazines with Bronco Henry’s name on them depictin
I think I will skip it but can see why is popular with Hollywood
Most of the big films will have screened at festivals. If you pay a bit of attention, you might find targets of opportunity. It only takes a minute to scan a list. This year, for example, Sundance had planned to return to an in-person/hybrid format this year but went all-online at the last minute (two weeks before the festival opened) because of the latest covid scare. I’ve never done Sundance but when everything went online, I thought what the heck.
There were a few films in which I had an interest and it’s fun to see something well ahead of its release date. There’s also an element of going in blind because many of the big festival films are premiers that no one has seen; you have to make a best guess depending on your sense of directors, actors and a brief synopsis. There were 82 feature films so you can’t see everything, but I took some chances and saw some good films. After Yang was the best of those I saw. I also saw a couple of clunkers: well acted and well reviewed, but definitely not my cup of tea. That too is part of “the festival experience.” I enjoyed it. Yeah, it takes a small investment of time and attention, but the alternative is to sit back and watch whatever Netflix or one of the other streamers decides to serve up.
I just got lucky on Montana Story, which I was able to fit into a bucket list family trip to the great Northwest. I was up in Great Falls and drove down to Missoula for a day. I had been to Billings, Yellowstone, Portland, and Vancouver in the past, but not to the Missoula area, which was wonderful to explore.
There are many movie festivals around the country. Most are small, local affairs — no harm in checking them out if any are close to you. The Montana Film Festival was a lot of fun. It focuses on local interest films and regional filmmakers but had Power of the Dog because it’s set on a Montana ranch (though it was filmed in New Zealand) and Montana Story, which is also set on a Montana ranch and was filmed locally. The theater probably held around a hundred people. A lot of the people in attendance were locals who had worked on the film. Missoula is a college town so there’s a local arts scene, but this is a down-home event. If you’ve washed your jeans within the last month, you’ll fit right in.
DC and Baltimore both have annual film festivals, and there are several more within easy driving range. They’re all small, but it’s easy enough to glance at the schedule and see if I get lucky. I’ve never done that in the past, but I will now.
Sure they produce sex, violence and perversion and then complain about it in society. Hypocrites all. AND USELESS!
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