Posted on 03/01/2018 1:02:00 AM PST by Kaslin
Have you seen more than one of the movies nominated for best picture this year at the Oscars? The answer is probably not. While two of the nominees actually found sizable audiences (Dunkirk and Get Out), the rest of the field consists of small movies the general public doesn’t care about. Coupled with what many Americans expect to be a 3-hour left-wing political seminar, the broadcast of the 90th annual Academy Awards this Sunday is shaping up to be a Spinal Tap concert-level disaster.
If you look past Dunkirk’s $188 million box office and Get Out, with a $176 million take (against only a $4.5 million production budget), none of the nominated films excited people this year. The next highest-grossing movie was The Post with $78 million. While nothing to sniff at, it’s production budget was $50 million. Add in the cost of marketing and you’re not exactly rolling in the profits there. And that’s a movie starring two of the biggest names in Hollywood (Hanks and Streep) being directed by the biggest (Spielberg). People just don’t care.
The rest of the nominees found small audiences, some made a profit, but none caught fire.
The closest thing to a sleeper hit was Get Out, which is, at best, a guilty pleasure B-movie only getting the attention it has enjoyed because of the racial politics associated with it. It’s fine entertainment, but had it not had liberal-imposed “deeper meaning” and the praise that accompanies it, it would have faded quickly.
Get Out wasn’t even thought of as Oscar-bait when it was released, just a small summer movie. Oscar contenders, or movies studios think can be, aren’t released until the end of the year. But the overwhelming media hype surrounding the movie led to an Oscar campaign for a movie already on cable. That doesn’t happen very often.
Were Get Out released during the Obama administration it likely would have been forgotten. But Donald Trump is president, and that fact has set liberal Hollywood on edge. Coupled with so many in the business being exposed as sexual predators, and you have an entertainment industry that is reeling and embracing liberalism even harder this year.
That’s why the vast majority of the public simply doesn’t care.
Aside from, Dunkirk, and Get Out, other nominees are forgettable and unrelatable to most people. I love movies and I have no desire to see any of them, only having seen Get Out because it was TV.
Other nominees and a brief summary of what they seem to be about are:
The Post: A movie lionizing the media in a time when the media is as popular as toenail fungus. Hollywood loves movies about the media, so does the media. Audiences…not so much.
The Shape of Water: A love story between a woman and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. I have no idea if it is, but it sure seems like it and I also don’t care.
Darkest Hour: Winston Churchill during the start of World War II. I’d watch it, but I don’t feel compelled to see it in theaters. I’ve heard good things, but I feel like I’ve seen this already.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri: A lady is mad at a racist cop for not solving her kid’s murder, or something. I don’t know, and I don’t care. Seems like a lifetime movie without the unintentional humor.
Lady Bird: When I first heard about it I assumed it was a bio-pic about LBJ’s wife. It’s not. Beyond that, I can only figure out that it’s about a quirky girl not getting along with her mom. I like movies that director Greta Gerwig has starred in, but have no desire to see this.
Phantom Thread: Daniel Day-Lewis is probably the best actor alive today, but a movie that seems like it’s about a creepy tailor is not high on my list for ways to spend two hours.
Call Me By Your Name: Watching an adult man seduce a 17-year-old boy is typical Oscar-bait but a bit weird in the “me too” era. Hollywood can’t help itself. Audiences sure did, it only took in $15 million at the box office. Maybe Kevin Spacey can present it, or sue for plagiarism from his life story. Either way, I’m with the rest of the country in having zero interest in it.
Audiences didn’t want to see the movies nominated, so there’s little chance they’ll tune in to see if movies they didn’t want to watch win awards they don’t care about.
Those who do tune in can expect host Jimmy Kimmell to lecture them about how awful the country is. There will be Trump jokes, there will be anti-Republican and anti-Second Amendment speeches. Don’t be surprised if an Obama or CNN-approved Parkland shooting survivor shows up on stage at some point, or at least gets a shout-out.
Who wants that? Who needs that?
The entertainment industry exists because people want to be entertained, to escape from reality for a little while. But Hollywood can’t do that anymore, at least when it comes time to reward itself. They act as though they’re important; they believe it because their publicists tell them they are. The American people told them last year they aren’t, box office numbers hit a 25-year low in 2017.
Hollywood won’t learn the lessons of 2017. They’re making a movie about Wendy Davis, the liberal Democrat who became a liberal celebrity by filibustering an abortion law in Texas, then let the media attention go to her head and suffered a humiliating defeat in a bid for governor, so clearly Hollywood doesn’t care either.
So which movie will win best picture? Who cares? The biggest winners of the night will not be the rich celebrities who collect the $100,000-plus “swag bags” the pampered class is getting at the event (though that’d be nice), it’s the people who don’t watch any of it.
See 31. I think that sums up my amazing lack of diversity perfectly. /s
I had the same feeling.
That, and as you said, EliRoom8, that claustrophobic fear...men on the long pier or topside on a vessel with no place to go, no place to hide as the Nazi planes came in to bomb and strafe. Your only defense was to make yourself as small as you could, hopefully behind the flesh and blood of another man who you hoped would stop a round or shrapnel before it got to you.
“the media is as popular as toenail fungus”
Quote du jour. *snort*
Death Wish is supposed to be released tomorrow but I see showings listed for tonight.
I had the same thought about Darkest Hour and Tump and Churchill. When Churchill asked the King if he(Churchill frightened him. The king said yes, because he didn’t know what was going to come out of Churchill’s mouth next. No-one liked Churchill because he was “rude” and did not have diplomacy. But he was successful in the end.
They also did a good job of showing the pressure of making a deal with Hitler before Dunkirk.
Oldman seemed to embody Churchill.
There was a score, but not a traditional one. Subtle, but it very much added to the intensity of the visuals. I have parts of it on one of my playlists. I enjoy it.
The sound illusion that makes Dunkirk so intense:
Yep.
Saw it in an IMAX theater. It was an impressive spectacle, particularly the flight scenes, but not all that great a movie. On the small screen, I would have said, "Meh.".
Count me among the FReepers who are missing in action at the Box Office. I used to love movies, would go weekly with Mrs WBill. Now, I might see one or two a year - Dunkirk was the last.
I just watch all the pampered idiots at the Oscars, talking about how Trump supporters should be drawn and quartered, and I can't separate that from the movies that they're in. Why give my money, and particularly my time, to people who hate me?
The last time I took the Academy’s word for anything, I ended up spending 2 hours of my life suffering through the misery that was Rachel Getting Married. Absolutely the must horrid murder of an afternoon in my life. The dentist was better. Never again.
The traditional music score is so overpowering that IMHO it distracts from many of the scenes.
I may have been so intent on the story that the score never registered with me.
I liked The Darkest Hour. It has no nude or sex scenes and no profanity—and it even features a cat!
I liked Dunkirk—another film with no nudity or sex scenes, a rarity today. However, I was disappointed that it was not about the Battle of Dunkirk in 1658, but one that took place later.
Here’s a summary of Get Out (Thriller):
Young black people get kidnapped by rich white folks who have discovered a way to transfer their aging brains into the younger, healthier hosts. The rich folks even have an auction for them to bid on the black people...
We saw Darkest Hour, and it was very good. Not in to movies much any more and might see only one a year at the theater.
In CA, we were part of a group that previewed movies, still in production. They were basic, and usually not set to music yet. If was fun; it was free. After the movie we had to spend an hour after filling out a survey and discussing certain things. They asked about characters, alternate endings, and similar.
Then it got so they all had homosexuals and/or satanic stuff, and we’d walk out. An agent at the door would ask why we were leaving, and we’d tell them. When it reached a point where most of them were crap we stopped participating. Hollywood is shameful any more.
I can definitely see that.
I don’t see many movies at all in the last 25 years so most of the movie music I come across today are things I stumble across, I’ve always been big on scores and music added to other visuals so when I see visual media the music is usually something I notice.
To be honest, I don’t think the score for Dunkirk registered with me consciously, but I did pick up on it with my emotions.
After the movie, I sought it out on YT to see if there was anything I liked.
“Forgive me, but I didn’t think Dunkirk was that great.”
No forgiveness needed. It stunk right up to the pitiful mock up of the Spitfire burning with a chunk of pipe holding the propeller where an engine should have been.
yes sometimes they release on the Thurs night b4 the weekend.
I haven’t heard any of the late night hosts like Kimmel discuss Ryan Seacrest, hmmmm
See something, stay silent if it’s one of us.
A film about Wendy Davis? Good grief. Hollywood really doesn’t care that its out of touch with America.
I haven’t seen any of these films and certainly won’t be watching the Oscars.
For anyone that hasn’t seen Dunkirk, I will speak up for it. I thought it to be an amazing film. Almost dreamlike/surreal with its sparse dialogue and intense, but understated score. The cinematography was spectacular. My only regret was that I didn’t see it on the big screen.
If someone hasn’t seen it, they may or may not want to watch the making of it here:
Dunkirk Spirit
https://youtu.be/qw0G_ddYoPs
and this:
Dunkirk veteran moved to tears over realism of new film:
https://youtu.be/uc4wBfh3lwk
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