Oscar Nominations Stream

Starting in a few minutes:

God-awful noms. The Best Picture nominations are especially laughable.

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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.

I think it'd save time if you just let everyone assume you hated them and just let us know the first time you don't.

Anyway, the picks pool's up. Obviously coming in hot so if I messed something up, somebody let me know.

Probably change some but this was a tough year to pick.

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Letterboxd

Yeah, I always just do preliminary choices and revisit a few times.

Following this logic, it'd save most time if I stopped posting and voicing my opinions altogether. If I were a new user and got a reply like that, I doubt I'd like to participate in the discussion any further. To not look too far, last year's nominations were much better. Hey, the Academy is always a decade behind and never picks the real masterpieces of the year. That's to be expected, but even then it's OK to expect some sanity in the picks and/or compare the picks to those from recent years. If you agree Oscars could step up their game nominations-wise, then you shouldn't frown upon people discontent with this year's picks, even if they do it every year (which I don't remember doing).

What would you have nominated?

I'm bummed the Kauffman flick wasn't better received. Noms were kind of what I expected though. Glad Sound Of Metal is getting some love. I think Nomadland was really good as well.

This is the first year where I've seen none of the Best Picture nominees.



If they had just nominated Bad Boys for Life, this could have been avoided.

I think following the logic leads you to the idea that there's not much value to voicing only an opinion, sans elaboration. Particularly a negative one, and particularly a very broad, non-specific negative one. Condemning literally dozens of nominees without mentioning a single film (as undeserving or as a deserving alternative) is pretty extreme in this regard.

If you were a new user you wouldn't get a reply like that, because hearing the same thing over and over is the entire impetus for the response. And a new user wouldn't be playing off of a persona. More on that below.

Real talk, since this is obviously just gonna keep coming up: you obviously play a little bit of a character here in your hatred of mainstream fare, giving things zero stars to make a point, etc. IIRC you've admitted as much. And that's fine, but if you're gonna be half-seriously glib you'll get half-seriously glib responses. That's just fair. It wouldn't be fair, though, to kinda weave in and out of the two (a little wink-ingly over-the-top one minute and very serious the next) without warning, or getting offended or serious all of a sudden. To be fair, it's human nature to think our own little jabs are good-natured and should roll off everyone else, but take the ones that come back at us a bit more seriously. But I think it's on all of us to compensate for that.

I like your style and seriously value your perspective on a lot of this stuff, but I think it's only fair that you either absorb the occasional glib clapback (done in the same half-serious style as the initial opinions, of course), or else be less glib. Honestly, I'm fine with either.

It was tough this year because there has been so many great films released. 8 out of the 8 films nominated for Best Picture are in the English Language. That really is pathetic. I guess they changed the habit of a lifetime last year so don't have to do it again for another 80 years.

You cannot take an award ceremony seriously if it thinks Promising Young Woman deserves to be up for best picture before the likes of The Painted Bird, Beginning, A Sun, Dear Comrades, System Crasher, A White White Day, Song Without a Name, Collective, Monsoon, Mathias et Maxime etc etc etc

I would be interested in seeing a list of alternates, because I really don't have much of a clue of what's come out this year. A lot of these films are exclusive to streaming sites that I don't use (Disney, Apple, HBO), but, honestly, a number of the nominees are films I haven't been too excited to seek out. (Judas being a notable exception.) Because of Covid, it seemed like a lot of the "new releases" this year have been vault-cleaning shelf-fillers that were just ready to go without much extra production.

I'm disappointed that Thinking of Ending Things isn't even in the discussion. I have no idea how Social Dilemma missed the docs. And wouldn't it have been wonderful if Vast of Night caught a visual FX nom? Was it worse than Midnight Sky?

The only thing more depressing than the mediocre Borat sequel getting the script nom is seeing that they actually needed eight writers to come up with that.

"Elementary? Oh, I don't doubt that it was...I remember the class, it was just between recess...and lunch!"

I’m happy about the nominations for Trial of the Chicago 7 and Promising Young Women. I’m glad Glenn Close got nominated. I would have liked to see some nominations for I’m Thinking of Ending Things and Never Rarely Sometimes Often. I think Soul should have been nominated for best picture. I’m slightly disappointed that Sorkin didn’t get nominated for best director. Overall, I’m pleased with most of the nominations.

Looked it up and apparently, all movies released between Jan. 1, 2020 and Feb. 28, 2021 are eligible. Let's assume all foreign films are OK:

Atarrabi et Mikelats (Eugène Green, 23 September 2020)
Last Letter (Shunji Iwai, 17 January 2020)
Red Post on Escher Street (Sion Sono, 9 October 2020)
Last and First Men (Jóhann Jóhannsson, 6 July 2020)
The Woman Who Ran (Hong Sang-soo, 25 February 2020)
Willy's Wonderland (Kevin Lewis, 12 February 2021)
Berlin Alexanderplatz (Burhan Qurbani, 26 February 2020)
Stump the Guesser (Guy Maddin / Evan Johnson / Galen Johnson, 25 February 2020)

Wasn't a fan of the newest Tsai film Days, but wouldn't mind seeing it nominated as a late-to-the-party gesture from the Academy.

I could go the 'can't you see' route, but that wouldn't be fair. I admit I could be more specific. Here are some of the more jarring choices:

• Promising Young Woman - a pop-feminism thriller with very little to offer other than Carey Mulligan's performance. Not a terrible film, but awfully middling. A point could be made it was nominated only because it is pop-feminist, but I don't want to talk politics since it's forbidden.
• Judas and the Black Messiah that was most probably chosen because of the subject matter (as a bow to BLM).
• Mulan nominated for best costumes. Probably had to fill in another place, but the costumes in this film are not good. To put it bluntly, they're terrible. The fact Disney cooperated with Xinjiang's propaganda department is even worse. I wouldn't mind if the film was any good or if the West wasn't so hypocritical. Polański, Allen, etc. are bad rapists, S. Craig Zahler a bad conservatist, but Disney working with people who literally plan to exterminate Uyghurs is fine. I know many people weren't OK with that, but nominating Mulan is a big faux pas. Especially since the film cannot defend itself in the quality field.
• Mank - I can actually see why it was nominated, but Fincher's choice to shoot in digital... ugh... (digital is fine and can be used masterfully but not when you're paying tribute to the times and works that used film and botch it).
• Minari - not very subtle, very American family drama with the American Dream in the background. Terribly craftsman-like. Metaphors larger than life, dragged out, and boring.

Fair enough. ^^

Excuse me. I'm giving things half a star. And not just mainstream things! I don't hate mainstream. I hate bad mainstream films just like I hate bad non-mainstream films.

I might have overreacted, but in this particular case my jab was at films and yours was at me. I get your point, though.

I'm very serious in real life and trust me, you wouldn't like that. Or maybe you would... You're no fun, Yoda, no fun!

But... no offense taken! I'm glad we cleared things up (or did we?).

Genuinely surprised 'Surprising Young Woman' got nominated; thought it was just gonna be one of those 'indie gem' films.

All in all, not a good selection in comparison to last years ones (But I always have something bad to say about the Oscar pics so I'll keep quiet). Of course there's some good ones, but then there's ones where you have no idea why it was nominated (I mean the Mulan remake and the Borat sequel, really guys?)

Would've liked to see Gunda get a documentary nod.

Once again Cartoon Saloon is gonna lose to Pixar, what a shame.

The director noms are great though, any of them could win and I'd be happy.

Never even thought about that! A production design nom would've been good.

Based

I usually feel that way about Best Picture noms, don't let it get to you

@Mr Minio: thanks dude, appreciate the reply. I'm just going to pretend you secretly loved Iron Man 3 now and I'm sure it won't affect our interactions at all.

Interesting thought on Mank and digital. I can honestly say I'm not sure how I feel about that. I thought the film was gorgeous, though I guess there is a weird dissonance in shooting it that way and yet still taking pains to make it seem like it's on old film stock. I think it did a better job of faking that than most, though (like films faking old VHS stuff but it's just so obviously half-assed).

Re: Judas and the Black Messiah. I don't mind the initial reaction there, because it is a little on-the-nose zeitgeist-wise, but it's pretty good. The performances, in particular, are tremendous.

I have not like the look of the last two Netflix B&W flicks. I didn't find them atrocious but I have heard both Mank and Malcolm And Marie praised for their cinematography. I'm not usually someone who compares film to digital a lot but both these just felt too sterile for me. I don't know. I may have just crossed over to old curmudgeon.

It was especially noticeable in Mank because it was totally going for a Kane aesthetic. Probably didn't help that I watched them back to back.