Media itt: movie/film discussion - Beware Spoilers

vonFiedler

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Could people have possibly enjoyed watching La La Land because it was actually fun to watch, and not because they were mind controlled by the Hollywood meme machine?
Was it fun to watch a movie where you always knew the couple would split up and the only surprise was which plot contrivance they'd use? And as far as contrivances go, I didn't know the appointment was todaaaaaay is a classic. Completely avoidable fake drama. This kind of crap even dragged down Whiplash (same director/writer, Damein Chazelle) where it was a very minor plot detail, and that movie ended with a musical number that will be remembered for decades after La La Land is forgotten.

I get that Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone are cute right now, but you should want more out of a movie before you hype it as the best of the year. It's not exactly Fury Road. Actually, I just read that Chazelle also wrote 10 Cloverfield Lane this year, which is also a better movie. The guy obviously has a bright future, which is all the more reason to hold him to a higher standard than what was delivered here.
 

GatoDelFuego

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Was it fun to watch a movie where you always knew the couple would split up and the only surprise was which plot contrivance they'd use?
yes.

I suppose I'm not some kind of predictive mastermind, because I just like to sit down and watch a movie without predicting the ending. This is just me guessing, because I don't know the thoughts behind every single person in the united states that watched LLL, but I thought it was a good movie because it was fun to watch. I didn't think it was good because it brainwashed me into believing that LA is a magical place where Dreams Do Come True. Ask anybody, I am so scathing of the California culture it's insane.

I'll give some context: I'd quite literally never heard of this movie until the day I saw it. Call me a hermit that lives under a rock if you want. I also really hate romantic comedies. I was on vacation, my aunt and dad said they were going to see something called "La La Land" at the local cinema, and said it was "some kind of musical with Ryan Gosling". I wasn't particularly excited and actually had a personal bias that I might NOT enjoy the movie, so I just sat there and let it play.

And I was immediately blown away by one of the most amazing openings to a movie I've ever seen in theaters. Another Day of Sun is catchy, even you've admitted that much. People like long takes; they're pleasing on the eye. Someone in the Crowd cemented the film's mood as airy and uptight (and I personally enjoyed the sour cynicism that whatever the lead girl's name was had). The movie opens with 15 minutes of people enjoying themselves and having FUN. It encourages them to enjoy themselves. I laughed for five seconds straight when I saw the key rings full of priuses. People would rather see "coke commercials" that make them feel happy than other things. People see movies to have fun and enjoy themselves.

Sure, maybe I wouldn't put it in the imdb top 50 movies list and laud it with 500 oscar awards, but I've agreed with about 1% of oscar awards in the past decade and there's plenty of films that imdb rates high that I don't like. It's just personal taste, and clearly a lot of people enjoy the movie. You clearly don't, and that's OK. But I don't see why you have to devote yourself to making sure everybody you meet understands that it's just the "Hollywood circlejerk of the week" or some distasteful oscar bait.

On personal taste:
Predictability is in no way directly tied to quality either. Predictable is bad if I predict that the story is going to be lame. For instance, I know how La La Land was gonna turn out as soon as I saw WINTER pop up on the screen and since I didn't like the cookie cutter plot I had predicted, I didn't like watching it on screen either. But I can predict plots in such a way that I enjoy them too. "Yeah, I see where this going, and I like it." Because something that's predictable is usually sensible too.
If I'm getting this right, just because something is predictable doesn't mean it's bad. I said that I couldn't predict the end of this movie and I enjoyed it; but doesn't this mean that other movie watchers in the world could have predicted the ending, but still enjoyed it?
 

TheValkyries

proudly reppin' 2 superbowl wins since DEFLATEGATE
Amateur tip: when you like a movie talk about what the movie did that made you like it. When you didn't like a movie talk about yourself and why things didn't connect for you. Too often people make movies they like be about the things they like about themselves and the things they don't like be about the movies failures. It's a relationship man. Love movies more.

This is why I give people like Eagle4 so much shit when he comes in and dismisses a block buster because he's a boring fuddy-duddy. But at the same time he has some great stuff to write about movies I'm a boring fuddy-duddy about.
 

vonFiedler

I Like Chopin
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Amateur tip: when you like a movie talk about what the movie did that made you like it. When you didn't like a movie talk about yourself and why things didn't connect for you. Too often people make movies they like be about the things they like about themselves and the things they don't like be about the movies failures. It's a relationship man. Love movies more.
Amateur tip? Amateur tip to what? Watching movies for fun? There aren't amateurs and pros at that. If you want to talk film criticism, sometimes you criticize films. When a movie uses the same tired relationship tropes that every other film and tv shows does, that I assume would lead someone like Gato to "dislike romantic comedies", I'm not gonna be like "maybe that's just me". Maybe "just me" is why I don't connect with a boring confused movie like Bull Durham, it being sports and all. But this is a movie that was supposed to connect with me. So why didn't it? That's what I've been posting about. Sorry that it steps on your toes but I'm not going to not say bad things about a movie that I felt fell flat. Film criticism.

Maybe I'm kind of an asshole for telling others not to like it, but I wouldn't be if people would take an interest in musicals at large. That's what makes me feel very wary about the hype.
 

phantom

Banned deucer.
Just got around to seeing Arrival and I am supremely disappointed that La La Land is the hype of the year and not this.
yeah, seconding that arrival isn't getting nearly enough attention it deserves. you expect something more dramatic when watching films with aliens, so the somber and mellowed-out tone, in contrast to other films of similar genre, probably didn't give people what they were expecting. i felt like it was the same mood that made the interaction between the protagonists and the unknown they were trying to understand particularly interesting, though. haven't seen la la land, so i can't say say anything of worth on that.

in general, it's nice to see that a lot of good sci-fi films over the past few years have been more subtle in their delivery when introducing extraterrestrials; under the skin was another i film i enjoyed not only because of that, but because it reflects back on concepts of humanity where it it wouldn't normally be expected, which is something that sticks with you more than some parasite bursting out of a guy's chest, although I can't say the gore isn't fucking amazing when done right. i'm pretty hyped for alien: covenant.
 

vonFiedler

I Like Chopin
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There's already a contender for best movie of 2017 and it's the Lego Batman Movie. I was pretty wary because it wasn't made by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, and also it seemed like an obvious cash-in. But then again, I didn't who those guys were before Lego Movie and I thought that would be an obvious cash-in. Instead Lego Batman does for modern DC what Lego Movie did for animated films... it kicked the shit out of them like nerds of a beach. This is everything that DC needs to be right now, that DC should be. It combines the kind of rich storytelling and insane awesomeness that you can only get from the best DC comics. And like Lego Movie, it's a fantastic deconstruction of everything its genre has been doing wrong.

Gonna see John Wick 2 in a few days. Let's see if Lego Batman keeps its throne.
 
Bit late but here's a longer review for Silence

Silence

★★

Check it out on my site here or read on

A film that’s been carefully designed and developed over a span of 25 years, Martin Scorsese has displayed great patience in creating a passion project that will ultimately test our own. Silence is a steely, brutal slog, an extreme departure from Scorsese’s recent filmography, deprived of Wolf of Wall Street’s manic energy and Hugo’s warmth and wonder. This abrupt change isn’t necessarily disappointing, and may indeed be welcoming, but the problem lies with the fact that Silence adopts the blunt manner of imparting its central message in a way that may be more suited to those films.

The film, a faithful adaptation of Shusaku Endo’s 1966 novel, follows Father Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Father Garupe (Adam Driver), two Jesuit priests willingly sent to Japan to spread their faith and find their captured mentor, Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson), who’s believed to have renounced and reformed as a Japanese Buddhist. It’s a premise poised with potential, yet Silence endeavours to sap any intrigue built up by the promise of danger. Rodrigues and Garupe are joined by the historical drama’s most complex and interesting character, Kichijiro, a Japanese Catholic who has no reservations about renouncing his faith in order to protect his life. He’s a tragic figure, beautifully portrayed by Yôsuke Kubozuka’s and his suitably exaggerated expressions, each delivery layered with desperation. His plight, a repetitive cycle of renouncing and pleading for forgiveness, is harrowing, and gives the film its greatest, and, really, only impact.

Less impactful is the narrative thrust as a whole, where the character arc of Rodrigues, and his tangling with faith, is designed with little consideration of subtlety or range. Over the lengthy running time, he’s worn out and grinded down by Japanese enforcement and the horrific torture of those around him, and the audience share his discomfort. Yet discomfort is the only emotion these scenes can manage to muster up. That a film is intentionally unenjoyable to watch shouldn’t be seen as a problem, but when it can only incite a reaction similar to a mother looking at her son’s grazed knee, there’s the problem. We feel sorry for the victims of the on-screen torture, not because we care enough, but because we’re meant to. Their scenes are achingly slow, intended to draw out the pain felt by the victims, yet they are just faces, barely fleshed out identities to which Scorsese can exact his punishment. The use of clumsy narration, coupled with some outrageously shoddy sound mixing, where waves mesh jarringly with dialogue, transform what could’ve been an impactful event of victims strapped to crosses and drowned against the waves, to a disappointingly soggy affair.

And let’s talk more about that sound design. Throughout Silence, characters’ dialogue between cuts change in volume, are dubbed over with imprecision, or combine with the background so that both noises are incoherent. It’s astonishing that a film, carefully constructed over 25 years, with a director infamous for his perfectionism, can be swamped with multiple instances of technical faults. And if these decisions were made intentional by Scorsese, it’s only as a detriment to the film, taking the audience out of scenes where the whole point is to suck you in and leave you as helpless and agonized as the film’s protagonist.

The protagonist himself is indeed both helpless and agonized, sure, but Garfield can’t summon the complexity needed for a character that’s intended to carry the film’s lofty theme of faith in the face of silence. He manically overacts in the first half, his agitated expressions betraying any notions of nuance, before calming down when the script dictates a simplified, worn-down performance in the protracted transition from second to third act. It doesn’t help that Scorsese has decided that English marked with the rough fragments of a Portuguese accent is the best method of delivering dialogue, a choice that functions much worse on camera than it does in text; neither Garfield nor Driver have the voicework necessary to pull off the task convincingly.
Liam Neeson, thankfully, doesn’t even bother. His introduction and following speeches on Japanese tradition and religion, while blatantly expositional, provide the profundity that’s otherwise lacking throughout Garfield’s narrative. His presence adds intrigue, if only momentarily, but then directorial decisions made in the third act serve to either undercut the idea of maintaining faith in spite of the absence of a spiritual response, or to lay on the ham, dragging towards an obvious conclusion, in a film beset with obviousness. The characters are categorised by a strict separation of good and evil, Kubozuka’s Kichijiro the only anomaly, where context is wastefully neglected to characters starved of depth. It’s a pretty film, fog rolling across villages, representative of Garfield’s clouded state of mind, and the narrative is appropriately drawn out and met with the required level of torment and discomfort, so it’s difficult to argue that the 25 years taken to finally release Silence were for nought. Yet the inconsiderate approach to both character and sound design, and the absence of a deep emotional core, suggests that 25 more years of development may do the film some good.
 

Soul Fly

IMMA TEACH YOU WHAT SPLASHIN' MEANS
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And now Manchester By The Sea. Good lord what an immense film. Now that's how you complicate endings. Casey Affleck was also an honest surprise because I haven't really watched anything with him in it, since his second-rate-Affleck role in Goodwill Hunting. And it works! I really don't quite know why but it does. There are two particular scenes where he turns up the jarring dissonance to an 11. This is perhaps the most un-Hollywood, Hollywood thing I've seen. Must have taken an ace guy to get a studio to agree to fund this. I thought the director looked familiar and then I realized he was on of the writers on Gangs of New York. Just didn't realize he had such material in him.

Every movie I watch convinces me that it'll be a tragedy if La La Land dominates the Oscars. This is not how people should remember this film cycle 10 years from now. This year had some incredible stuff. Got my eyes on Moonlight next, and I hear nothing but high praise for that as well.
 
I think that Manchester by the Sea works because there is very little forced plot in it. Every character in the movie is flawed and human. The way they go about things is not done for plot purposes. It is like you are actually in the inner machinations of the family and it makes sense. It captivates loss pretty. The pain of it but also the fact that life moves on and shit... we're all living life the best we can and dealing with things in our own way. It is refreshing to get that form of honesty from a film. Not have to watch a film that doesn't feel quite genuine and whose characters you couldn't imagine existing in real life.

I haven't seen La La Land because I genuinely despise musicals, but I know I'm going to have to give it a chance to achieve my goals of not being a movie outcast. But it would absolutely be a tragedy if one movie dominated the awards. Manchester, Hacksaw Ridge, and Moonlight were all great films and Arrival was good in a lot of respects. Not being recognized would be a shame, but the Oscars are pretty ass anyways.
 
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Manchester By The Sea is a goddamn revelation and a masterclass in understated film writing.

I agree with the consensus in that La La Land shouldn't sweep the board. But I reckon it will. Some of its biggest problems (Sound Mixing, Cinematography) are almost certain locks. Having said that, I'm not against it winning Best Picture (Director should go to Lonergan imo). It's not the best nominee but it'll be one of the best Best Pictures we've had in a while, and in what looks like a two-horse race between it and Moonlight, La La Land is just about the better film imo. Manchester By The Sea is the most deserving nominee, but it has barely any chance.

There's a recurring theme for Best Picture where my favourite out of the top two competitors doesn't win. To give examples, I was rooting for Gravity and it lost out to 12 Years a Slave. Then, I was with Boyhood all the way, and Birdman won (Birdman's a good film, don't get me wrong, but I feel like it's already aged terribly). Next, it was a two-horse race between Spotlight and The Revenant, and Spotlight unfortunately took Best Picture home (Though I do think it's a great film). So, on that basis, Moonlight is certain to bag the Best Picture ahead of La La Land ;)

It's taking a while to get through all the Best Picture nominees so I can rank them, because a lot of them just seem so uninteresting. Hidden Figures looks like standard made-for-TV schlock, Fences looks like a play that should've stayed a play, Hacksaw Ridge looks like a cheesy, sickly melodrama and Lion looks like standard, forgettable fare. I haven't seen any of these films, yet, so I may be proven wrong, and, heck, may find another Brooklyn (a film I was reluctant going into it). But don't you think that this year's nominee list just makes last year's list stand out more? Last year was much better, both in quality and range. Aside from Arrival, and sort-of La La Land, this year is a hodge-podge of dramas.

Last year we had Mad Max: Fury Road, an incredible action film that opposes any preconceptions of what an Oscar nominee should look like. We had The Revenant, a sprawling, fierce survival-revenge story with astonishing visuals. We had Spotlight and Brooklyn, two dramas executed perfectly, eking out emotion in wildly different ways. We also had The Big Short, a frantic comedy-drama that made banking interesting! And sure, I may have my qualms about The Martian, Room and The Bridge of Spies, but they each have their supporters, and I can't have everything my way.

This year, there's no Mad Max... no Grand Budapest Hotel.. no movie that you're pleasantly surprised made the cut. Nocturnal Animals could've been that movie, but it was perhaps too strange and daring for the Academy. A Bigger Splash could've been that film. Toni Erdmann could've, too. But, no.
 
Hacksaw Ridge was actually a pretty impressive film regarding the massive heroics of a WWII medic in Okanawa who refused to carry a weapon. I watched a documentary about the main character Desmond Doss, and while they make quite a bit of small Hollywood'd additions, the overall heroics of this mans actions makes me wonder why he didn't have a movie dedicated to him already. A hell of a man, a hell of a soldier, and a hell of a movie. The only knock you can really have on it is that there are definitely scenes that are heavily inspired from iconic scenes in Full Metal Jacket and Saving Private Ryan, but it isn't overly distracting and is a great movie to represent both a unique American hero and the Battle of Okinawa.
 
Saw Lion and it is standard, forgettable fare. Buttttt.... I liked it all the same. We know the basic beats of the narrative so all that's left is to find out is whether it's executed well. Thankfully, it's that and more, an effectively affecting tearjerker that contains some astonishingly cathartic scenes and an adorable child actor. Which makes it all the more frustrating, then, is that Lion occasionally botches its delivery, blunting out the idea of recollection rather than trusting the audience.

And yeah it's manipulative, but it doesn't draw attention to the fact that it's manipulative, by coming across in a genuine, heartfelt manner (aside from an odd sing-song shared between children). Think Brooklyn levels of sweet sentimentality rather than Room's cloying guff.

Also, ayy hit 20 films for 2017, well on track for my 100 films-released-in-2017 challenge.

edit: aaaand Hacksaw Ridge was a huge crock of shit. O well, balances out really
 
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internet

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watched ikiru. halfway through the movie i ordered it online as a gift to my parents. by the end, i was crying like a bitch. watch ikiru
 

brightobject

there like moonlight
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watched

-dont breathe: simple, solid horror. some inconsistencies with the way they portray time in the movie (ie ppl take too long or too little to move around) but otherwise well paced--the buildup to that first superviolent clash is truly amazing. Some epic scenes that you can tell were filmed literally in the dark, the actors' pupils are so dilated. Pretty immersive. there's a very lame epilogue scene tho

-21 jump street: some messy action scenes / filmography in general but thats not what u watch this film for. funny as HELL. nails all the weird shit thats happened to high schools since 10-20 yrs ago. simply excellent comedy

-fargo: bleak, funny, sad, hopeful. good shit. my first coen bros. movie but i still liked it, despite their use of fade cuts (ew!). the lead actress does an amaazing job. Still some things I don't really understand about the movie symbologically but it was still a sloid watch

Eagle4 agree that hacksaw was not as good as ppl make it out to be :eyes: one of the most tonally confused movies i've seen
 
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Yay it's that time of year again where I rank the Best Picture nominees.

Ranking The Academy Awards Best Picture Nominees 2017

http://www.edgarreviews.co.uk/ranking-the-academy-awards-best-picture-nominees-2017/

Unfortunately, I haven’t had the time available to see Hidden Figures. With nine Best Picture nominees and limited time and budget, it was inevitable, so I chose to miss out on what looks like the nominee that I’d find the least engaging/interesting. Not to say that it’s the worst of the bunch, and it almost certainly isn’t, but I mean, c’mon, it looks like a made-for-TV movie.

8. HACKSAW RIDGE

Hacksaw Ridge is the American Sniper of this year’s nominees: an absolutely tepid and disengaging war flick devoid of cinematic comprehension or comprehension of any kind, really. As has been pointed out by its detractors, and with good reason, Mel Gibson’s latest is wildly bipolar, swinging from a twee, flimsy romance to a comically gutsy and over-the-top portrayal of the horrors of war. There’s no progression, no middle ground, and so when the battle begins, the first instinct is to laugh out loud. Yet, in a way, this change in tone can be seen positively: it saves the film from the corny schlock and mindless plot contrivances of the first half. It’s as if Gibson doesn’t know how to direct, attempting to recall 90s tack via inane uses of slow-mo and hammed-up character traits. When the war gets going, it’s still terribly made, the situations incredibly far-fetched (a Vince Vaughn-being-dragged scene in particular), but it’s terrible in the fun kind of way that makes you at least able to laugh at the film if nothing else. How this got nominated is beyond me, but I can at least take solace in the fact that there’s not a chance in hell it wins. They don’t make ’em like they used to, and based on the evidence of Hacksaw Ridge, maybe there’s a reason why.

7. FENCES

I’d make a pun that Denzel Washington’s third directorial effort swings for the fences and misses, but that would be lying: it doesn’t even try to. Fences is a creatively bereft and ultimately pointless retelling of a Pulitzer Prize-winning play that functions infinitely better on stage. Denzel Washington uses the play as a vehicle to show off how well and how much he and Viola Davis can act, forgetting that acting is only one component of a film. Fences is ugly, framed with little cinematic verve and stuttering camera work that only knows how to zoom in on people’s faces during heavy, tiresome monologues, and not how to cohesively portray an argument; the camera wanders and jilts distractingly, seemingly unaware of how to make the dialogue interesting to sit through. And there’s a lot of dialogue, too, all of which must be endlessly fascinating to experience live on stage, but dreadfully dull to watch on screen. The plot never escapes the trappings of its setting, and Washington has no interest in designing Fences as a worthwhile adaptation rather than a shameless medium to win a Best Actor Oscar. Shamefully, the one moment of abstraction that breaches Fences’ stagey confines also seems to justify the actions of a horrible man.

6. HELL OR HIGH WATER

Hell or High Water is an okay movie. It’s adequately made in every department, the camerawork kinetic, performances solid, and narrative largely satisfying. But it’s just okay. It’s a modernised western-thriller that plays out exactly as you’d expect to, missing the toppling emotion or daring moments that the films placed higher on this list all possess. Save for a few speeches that ram its themes of modernisation and exploitation down your throat, a few missteps in dialogue (a waitress scene that most people seem to love comes across as incredibly false in a film that at least appears to be going for realism), and characters that are, despite being fleshed out, largely dull, Hell or High Water is a film without any distinct and unsalvageable problems. It’s well-written, and astutely directed, but the film suffers from the same problems I have with another critical darling of 2016, Sing Street: we’ve seen these narrative beats before, this is a well-made film, but can we have something a little different? Hell or High Water is still an enjoyable ride, but it’s simply that: it doesn’t have the emotional or thematic heft required to justify a nomination.

5. LION

Lion is a lovely film. It tells the story of a young Indian boy stranded and adopted to live in Australia, yearning for home and striving to find his family again. We know the basic structure of the narrative so all that’s left is to find out is whether it’s executed well. Thankfully, it’s that and more, an effectively affecting tearjerker that contains some astonishingly cathartic scenes and an adorable child actor in Sunny Pawar. His scenes, a tour of Indian culture that make up the first half of the movie, are truly exciting to watch, and while we know where he ends up, we still feel afraid for his safety. Which makes it all the more frustrating, then, that the second half of Lion makes its story’s shortcomings clear, in what is essentially an hour of Dev Patel frantically using Google Earth to locate his family. Thanks to a superb score and a genuinely upsetting premise, Lion still manages to irk out the tears, and many of them, but it also occasionally botches its delivery, blunting out the idea of recollection rather than trusting the audience. What’s more, Rooney Mara’s role is nonexistent, relegated to conflict fodder when more time could’ve been spent on Sunny Pawar’s development with his new parents. Still, this is a film that attempts to be as emotional and resonant as possible, and achieves just that. Yeah it’s manipulative, but it doesn’t draw attention to the fact that it’s manipulative, by coming across in a genuine, heartfelt manner (aside from an odd sing-song shared between children). Think Brooklyn levels of sweet sentimentality rather than Room’s cloying guff.

4. MOONLIGHT

Moonlight, at least according to Metacritic, is the best-reviewed film of 2016, and it’s not difficult to see why. It’s an important drama, sprawling and contained in equal measure, detailing the experiences of a gay black man, Chiron, through three stages in his life. It’s a narrative structure used by Derek Cianfrance (more effectively, though) in A Place Beyond the Pines, and it’s use is necessary to convey Chiron’s progression in the face of abuse. Moonlight hits all the components of an Oscar movie but conveys them in a refreshing, artistically interesting manner, deep hues of blue and purple smoking the screen and signifying the film’s presence as not-your-everyday racial study. The score is suitably aching and powerful, the acting formidable at every turn, and its themes are appropriate and necessary. Sadly, however, Moonlight can’t help but feel like less than the sum of its parts, the message vital yet never truly impactful. This could be in part due to the fact that I live in England and this is a wholly American movie, but this is also due to the fact that Barry Jenkins takes some easy narrative decisions that serve to cheapen the plot, and that each act of the story never properly ties in to one another. It’s a film that I’m thankful for, if not truly taken aback by.

3. LA LA LAND

The hot favourite for Best Picture places third on my list, and with just how dazzling and enjoyable it is, I wish it placed higher. It’s a showy, starry faux-musical, a romance that’s more mature and developed than people give it credit for, a catchy playlist and potentially a criticism of Hollywood ambition that’s managed to disguise itself as just the opposite and propel itself to a hefty collection of accolades. I’d sing La La Land’s praises, but you’ve already heard it all before. Sure, it has its problems: it’s thematically confused, unable to firmly direct a central message at the audience without contradicting itself, and I’m not quite convinced Gosling and Stone’s amateurish singing and dancing is on purpose when every other role manages to sing and dance just fine. But that’s besides the point: we as an audience ignore La La Land’s shortcomings due to just how enamoured we are by the showmanship and talent on display, and with an ending that leaves you with an incredibly complex mixture of emotions, they’re easy to forgive and forget about. With Damien Chazelle’s follow-up to Whiplash, he more than sticks the La La Landing.

2. ARRIVAL

Denis Villenueve’s passionate, intelligent sci-fi, like this list’s number one spot, contains a moment that turns the whole film on its head. It’s an astonishing revelation of a scene, and one that’s earned almost as much controversy as it has praise. That’s not to say Arrival hinges on this scene: the film is still expertly written and beautifully photographed beforehand, the narrative tense and reluctant to reveal its secrets. Yet it’s this scene that propels the film from an interesting science fiction to a superb study on humanity and connection. Backed up by Johan Johansson’s appropriately otherworldly score, a rich Amy Adams performance, and the daring necessary to portray such an ambitious story, Arrival hardly puts a foot wrong. Villenueve’s next film is Blade Runner 2049, and based on the evidence of Arrival, it’s going to be great. You can read my Arrival review here.

1. MANCHESTER BY THE SEA

Despite how unassuming a film Kenneth Lonergan’s latest effort is, it’s by far the best film nominated for Best Picture: Manchester by the Sea is one of the most mature examinations of the human condition in quite some time. The film follows Lee (Casey Affleck), a handyman forced to parent his nephew (Lucas Hedges) after his brother’s (Kyle Chandler) untimely death. As Lee experiences the trepidations of being a parent, his past unravels via various flashbacks seamlessly interwoven with the narrative. The film feels small, owing to its understated camerawork, yet still astonishes – a powerful revelation halfway through sheds new, brutal light on Lee’s restricted mannerisms. Affleck, like the rest of the cast, executes his character perfectly. It’s a reserved, heartbreaking performance, aided by a script that refuses to manipulate. For all the potential for Manchester by the Sea to become cloying tedium, Lonergan has created a mellow masterpiece. I saw this film in October at the London Film Festival, and if anything, it makes more of an impression now, burrowing deeper into my mind. Is there anything quite as extraordinarily moving as Manchester By The Sea in the last few years? I doubt it.

And copying vonFiedler 's idea for a nomination wish list, my Best Picture slots would go something like this:

Arrival
A Bigger Splash
High-Rise
La La Land
Manchester By The Sea
Nocturnal Animals
Notes on Blindness
Swiss Army Man
Toni Erdmann
The Wailing
 
la la land was hot garbage, one of the worst musicals ive ever seen in my life
yo can you back this up pls? thx

Also, Oscar Prediction time!!

BEST PICTURE

Will Win: Moonlight
I know that La La Land is the hot favourite but its increasing backlash could get in the way. Moonlight is the second favourite but it has everything a Best Picture needs: important topics, current affairs, etc, and the #oscarssowhite last year may play a part (it certainly played a part in Fences being nominated, for example).

Should Win: Manchester By The Sea
See my last post for why Manchester By The Sea should win. It's an incredible film that has absolutely no chance of winning, unfortunately.

Should be Nominated: Nocturnal Animals
A Bigger Splash and The Wailing, my two favourite films from 2016, had absolutely no chance of being nominated, but Nocturnal Animals was an outside bet that proved to be a little too distant from Oscar sensibilities. It's an atmospheric, riotous film, a tonal hotpot and a cutting revenge fantasy.

BEST ACTOR

Will Win: Denzel Washington, Fences
It's a very showy performance in line with the classic Oscar role, and he is admittedly brilliant in it. The SAG gave the award to him and it usually gets it right so chances are Denzel Washington will (just) edge it...

Should Win: Casey Affleck, Manchester By The Sea
...however, Casey Affleck should win as his performance is equally, if not even more brilliant, and his role is much harder to play. He has to emote from what he doesn't do than what he does, in a restrained performance that forms the crux of the film. If he wins, and there is a strong chance he does, then I don't care how the rest of the Oscars goes tbh.

Should be Nominated: Adam Driver, Paterson
Probably over Gosling for La La Land? Paterson's performance was reserved and delightful but probably too slight in comparison with the nominees selected instead.

BEST ACTRESS

Will Win: Emma Stone, La La Land
There's a chance Huppert or Portman will steal it but Stone was excellent in La La Land, both comedically and dramatically. My God her facial expressions are everything in this movie.

Should Win: Emma Stone, La La Land

Should be Nominated: Sandra Huller, Toni Erdmann

In what is the best female performance of 2016, Sandra Huller acts the hell out of her role, and I'm surprised she wasn't nominated when Huppert is getting recognition for Elle.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Will Win; Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
The Bookies' favourite, Ali gives the best performance in Moonlight with a role that makes the first act the most meaningful. That dinner table scene is probably the best examination of his craft in Moonlight.

Should Win: Lucas Hedges, Manchester By The Sea
Honestly, Jeff Bridges notwithstanding, these are four very good performances on a relatively equal level. Lucas Hedges had a tough role in MBTS by having to not get outstaged by Casey Affleck, and the little breaks in restraint as he deals with the death of his father elevates the film to a new level. Shannon is great in Nocturnal Animals but Aaron Taylor-Johnson deserved the nod ahead of him.

Should be Nominated: Ralph Fiennes, A Bigger Splash
He makes the film, with a wildly camp performance that acts as a facade for deep inner turmoil. We sympathise with his character despite his inherent repugnance, making the second act turn all the more heart wrenching and shocking.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Will Win: Viola Davis, Fences
She was outstanding in Fences, again very showy, but intensely performed. She shouldn't be in this category but she still deserves to win tbh, ahead of Naomie Harris' hackneyed role and Nicole Kidman's solid performance with a really shitty monologue scene. Michelle Williams is also superb so I'd be happy to see her win too.

Should Win: Viola Davis, Fences

Should be Nominated: Jena Malone, The Neon Demon

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

Will Win: Kubo and the Two Strings (hopefully)
Should Win: Kubo and the Two Strings

CINEMATOGRAPHY

Will Win: La La Land
Should Win: Arrival
Should be Nominated: A Bigger Splash

COSTUME DESIGN

Will Win: Fantastic Beasts...
Should Win: Jackie
Should be Nominated: Nocturnal Animals

DIRECTING

Will Win: Damien Chazelle, La La Land
Should Win: Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester By The Sea
Should be Nominated: Luca Guadagnino, A Bigger Splash

FILM EDITING
Will Win: La La Land
Should Win: La La Land
Should be Nominated: A Bigger Splash

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Will Win: The Salesman
Should Win: Toni Erdmann
Should be Nominated: The Wailing

MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE)
Will Win: La La Land
Should Win: La La Land
Should be Nominated: The Childhood of a Leader

PRODUCTION DESIGN
Will Win: Fantastic Beasts...
Should Win: Hail, Caesar
Should be Nominated: The Handmaiden

WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY)
Will Win: Moonlight
Should Win: Arrival
Should be Nominated: A Bigger Splash

WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY)
Will Win: Manchester By The Sea
Should Win: Manchester By The Sea
Should be Nominated: Toni Erdmann
 

RODAN

Banned deucer.
yo can you back this up pls? thx
yea i made a bit of an aggressive post but here are my general stream of conciousness thoughts

the songs were garbage, the plot was average, the acting was the only thing that somewhat salvaged it. the fact that its getting all this insane hype behind it as the "revival of the modern movie musical" is fucking stupid. also nobody can sing in the movie and the entirety of the movie is hollywood sucking its own dick for 2 hours. I did really enjoy ryan gosling in it, but i think ryan gosling could do literally anything and he would put in a good performance. its a rehash of plots everyones seen before and they arent doing anything new or interesting with it.

as a musical its really bad too because a lot of the songs are very homogenous and samey.

I'm not saying you shouldn't enjoy it, because im not the quality police, and if you did enjoy it more power to you. I just really dislike it as a big fan of movie musicals. IDK. im not good at pointing out what i dislike very much.
 

GatoDelFuego

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Yo I've seen about 2 movie musicals (LLL and Singin in the Rain) but I love stage ones, what are the other greats I should be watching? Just a bunch of 50's things?
 
Yo I've seen about 2 movie musicals (LLL and Singin in the Rain) but I love stage ones, what are the other greats I should be watching? Just a bunch of 50's things?
any Disney movie with singing in it is technically a movie musical, and you've got things like The Lion King which was a Disney film later adapted into a stage musical. there are plenty of great movie versions of musicals, with two of the most important and well-known ones being West Side Story (1961) and The Sound of Music (1965), both of which are amazing.

Classic older movie musicals are Grease, Footloose, Annie, Rocky Horror, Fiddler, Little Shop of Horrors, Oklahoma, and Evita. More recent ones include Moulin Rouge!, Chicago, Sweeney Todd, Phantom, Dreamgirls, The Producers, Les Mis, and way more. Of these, I would highly recommend the movie versions of Chicago and The Producers, which were both amazingly done imo. Many of the others (Phantom and Les Mis especially) have a bit more to critique.

overall I liked La La Land quite a bit but I agree with rodan's criticism of the main characters. I didn't really care for Gosling at all and I thought the show was at its strongest when it wasn't just Mia and Sebastian on screen.
 

GatoDelFuego

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any Disney movie with singing in it is technically a movie musical, and you've got things like The Lion King which was a Disney film later adapted into a stage musical. there are plenty of great movie versions of musicals, with two of the most important and well-known ones being West Side Story (1961) and The Sound of Music (1965), both of which are amazing.

Classic older movie musicals are Grease, Footloose, Annie, Rocky Horror, Fiddler, Little Shop of Horrors, Oklahoma, and Evita. More recent ones include Moulin Rouge!, Chicago, Sweeney Todd, Phantom, Dreamgirls, The Producers, Les Mis, and way more. Of these, I would highly recommend the movie versions of Chicago and The Producers, which were both amazingly done imo. Many of the others (Phantom and Les Mis especially) have a bit more to critique.

overall I liked La La Land quite a bit but I agree with rodan's criticism of the main characters. I didn't really care for Gosling at all and I thought the show was at its strongest when it wasn't just Mia and Sebastian on screen.
Right, I'll check those two out since I've heard good things about producers and I love crime as a whole, but much of the others interest me little. I'm not sure my request can actually be met, because I think stage mary poppins is fab but the movie is awful, I'd rather shoot myself than watch a movie of annie after seeing it on stage, and I can't say I've liked many disney films. Now that I think about it I've seen film les mis and rent, both of which I thought were alright but the two stage les mis productions I saw blew it out of the water. I'm seeing stage sweeny todd in 2 weeks so probably won't watch the 2007 one.

My three favorite stage things I've seen are miss saigon, chorus line, and book of mormon in order. Anything on your list / others fit that bill? Sorry for rambling.
 
not really, sorry. I'm also a huge jazz fan, personally, which is why I loved Chicago / The Producers, but they're also great musicals and great movies in their own right. if you enjoyed La La Land then you might enjoy Moulin Rouge! for similar reasons? I'm not even sure why, but the two "feel" similar to me. Moulin Rouge is a lot wackier and more unorthodox than LLL, though
 
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watched ikiru. halfway through the movie i ordered it online as a gift to my parents. by the end, i was crying like a bitch. watch ikiru
Ikiru is amazing. One of my favourites. Glad to see it mentioned here (same w any non western cinema). Couldn't persuade mum to watch it for ages because of the way I described the story but she ended up loving it.

What were your favourite scenes? The swing scene made me cry as well. I also like the birthday party.

It's even more pensive and "out-there", but Kiarostami's Taste of Cherry is probably my all time favourite film and covers similar themes. Also, a lot of Ozu's films are close to Ikiru. So, I highly recommend
 

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Ikiru is amazing. One of my favourites. Glad to see it mentioned here (same w any non western cinema). Couldn't persuade mum to watch it for ages because of the way I described the story but she ended up loving it.

What were your favourite scenes? The swing scene made me cry as well. I also like the birthday party.

It's even more pensive and "out-there", but Kiarostami's Taste of Cherry is probably my all time favourite film and covers similar themes. Also, a lot of Ozu's films are close to Ikiru. So, I highly recommend
I really liked how the events after he decided to make the part happen were told from the perspective of people reminiscing about him during his funeral. I was pretty much crying before the swing scene but that scene made it pour.

Thank you for the recommendations!
 

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