Sorry didn't quite get what your opinion was. The Green Book was overly formulaic ?
Film Oscars 2019
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) was joined by comedian Ali Woods to look back at the best and worst moments of a rollercoaster season with the annual United Hour Awards.
Has Ten Hag been sacked yet? We're not sure and we hope not, but it's looking more likely as the days pass.
Who should replace him and why is it taking so long to make a decision?
Yes. That, and that in a year with a slew of genuinely good and original films about race made by black and latino people, the academy gives Best Picture to the one by a white guy we’ve seen literally 400 times.
I mean, at least they didn’t give it to the one about a flamboyant gay musician that had less gay sex in it than the film about an 18th century English Queen, but still....
Do you view Hidden Figures the same way ?
I saw The Green Book three weeks ago and didn't know what movie it was when I saw today it had won the Oscar. That's how memorable I think it was.
Most edits per minute?
I mean, I didn’t love it, but it did at least have 3 black women as it’s actual main characters, and it didn’t win Best Picture. And while it shouldn’t be, that fact is kinda the problem.
Look, it’s not like Green Book is a bad film, it’s a very very well acted one for a start, but it’s a very middling one too, that didn’t present anything new or particularly interesting. If it hadn’t won it would’ve faded into the background as an unexceptional but well acted feel good(ish) film, but that it did win, was patently due to its cosy politics in this decidedly uncosy time. The Academy clearly wanted to reward something average that they thought said something progressive. But rather than do that with Black Panther (which was definitely both those things) or any of the actually great or at least provocative and interesting films that dealt with those themes (like Klansmann, Blindspotting, if Beale Street Could Talk, Sorry to Bother You, etc) the one they decided to hold up was the easy, formulaic, milquetoast one that made them feel the most comfortable, whose politics can be neatly surmised by “the only thing that can stop a bad white guy with racism, is a good white guy with racism”.... which is just....eh. IMO, at least.
Add into that the fact it was also the only one of those films to be made by a white guy, whose last 2 directing credits were Movie 43 and Dumb and Dumber To, just further proves the stereotype of how low the bar is for middle brow, middle aged white men in Hollywood. He literally won a fecking Oscar with his first shot at making anything with substance!
At the very least, the optics of giving Spike Lee his first Oscar after 30 years of groundbreaking provocative, passionate (if often flawed) filmmaking on the same night they gave the guy most famous for putting cum in Cameron Diaz’s hair two of them just for trying, is fecking terrible. Hooray for progress in 2019!
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I'm usually quite liberal in my views and I'm sure racism is very relevant topic everywhere in the world. However I do think the leftwing American plays the race card far too much. I enjoy Trevor Noah's show but he doesn't need to turn everything into a black guy/white guy joke.
Relating it to this topic, has this film won truly due to the race topic? And if so, I find the academies criteria for deciding on winners/nominees spectacularly stupid.
I was looking forward to watching moonlight for a good while since it was highly rated and won the best picture award last year. But my word it was such a pile of complete nonsense. The movie had nothing apart from being about a back gay man. No story, nothing.
I mean, the latter is unquestionably true. And has been for decades. To the former, I can’t really imagine another reason why, because its such a formulaic perfunctory film. You literally know exactly what’s going to happen at every step. Right down to the exact beat of when Ali is going to show up at Mortensens door for Xmas dinner (not when there’s an initial knock - no no, that’s the red herring couple - but just as he’s about to close it again! Oh SNAP! There he is! What original writing! Give them all the golden statues!!)
I’m offended by its obviousness more than it’s racial politics.
The acting is great, genuinely. So I’d have had no truck with Vigo winning it too, but for it to also win Sceenplay and Film? Naaah.
Also, there’s a scene where Mortensen introduces Ali to the delights of Jazz and Fried Chicken.
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So the Academy are simultaneously being too woke and not woke enough?
Wokeception.
Wokeception.
Kinda. They pretty much universally reward things they think they should be rewarding, rather than the things that deserve rewarding, which is usually based on a reaction to how badly they got it wrong rewarding things before, only to get it wrong again, and have to reward something else crap later down the line to make up for it.
See; The Departed.
"The story of how that racist guy who says “I’m not racist, I have a black friend” met his black friend." - letterboxd reviewer
Regina King has been fantastic in every role I’ve seen her in, for all my life. So glad she’s finally getting her recognition.
The Lalaland/Moonlight feck up was actually the perfect encapsulation of the Oscars. The film they really wanted to give it to (the one about Hollywood and how amazing it is) and the one at the last minute they thought they probably should give it to (Moonlight) neither of which were the actual best film of the year.
But then, they never are. Because awards are largely stupid. And also there’s, like, a whole fecking “season” of them for some reason.
Hey, leave Moonlight out of this. That was a good film.
Meh. Of the nominees I've seen, both Bohenian Rhapsody and Vice were definitely worse than Green Book, so it could be worse I guess. It's just typical of the Oscars to opt for such a safe, soporifically woke film. Which is why nobody should ever pay the Oscars much attention.
Also, this is good.
Did you research what awards they won before posting? The only questionable win was Rhapsody for editing. That was terrible IMO.
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Which film should have won over those two?
Manchester by the Sea was boring. Fences was a play on film so couldn't get it despite the great acting. Hacksaw Ridge was well done but not better than the two. Hidden Figures also. Lion was nice but just a decent movie with a great story. Arrival or Hell and High Water? I guess you could make arguments for them.
Aidan Gillen is in every-fecking-thing.
Almost half the film was him just lip syncing, even his nomination clip was of him lip syncing...
I highly doubt the panel that voted even watched interviewers/clips of Freddie Mercury and were aware of his demeanor, they probably were just given a copy of Live Aid to compare it to...
Anyone but Rami Malek. The whole win was so contrived. "We made a film about a gay man, an immigrant". No the film made itself, its not like they seeked out a obscure story and adapted it to a screenplay, it's about arguably the most famous frontman ever, who millions, if not billions of his fans would watch.
So off the top of my head, the Dora Milaje, Daniel Kaluuya's character's border tribe costume, Shuri in various scenes, Angela Bassett's character in various scenes. Basically the whole scene when M'Baku challenges T'Challa.
Its pretty self explanatory, but given that film has been lorded for its "groundbreaking", "transcending", "trailblazing" and all the other superlative its being graced with for having a majority black cast, you would think that would extend to the crew, but seemingly not, given the entire SFX team was white.
The majority black cast in a major superhero movie is the what caused the euphoria around the film and why its being mention for so many awards. If you actually believe it had the best SFX for all the movies last year, then, well, each on their own guess....Personally, SFX was the worst thing about the entire movie imo .
Also it won the Oscar for best set design, given that most of the film was created post edit and filmed in front of a green screen tells you everything
Just saw Colman's acceptence speech on Reddit. The most British thing ever.
For me awards season is only good for highlighting movies I probably would have missed day to day. Doubt I would have seen Moonlight if it hadn't been in the awards running.
This year was a weird one though as I had heard all of the main films nominated except for Green Book and Can you ever forgive me?
I've not seen the film, but in isolation this is kinda bad. That being said, it made me feel uncomfortable, and it seems like an uncomfortable moment... so at least it made me feel *something*?
Hate shitting on other people's work though because you don't know the kinds of decisions made in the room and who was making those decisions, and I've no idea how the rest of the film is edited.
Edit: Forgot to say that Olivia Colman. HELL YES! She's the national treasure we don't deserve.
Good god...
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The only good thing about Green Book are the performances of the two leads, which make an otherwise awful film watchable. It's a preachy, cringey, self-indulgent load of predictable ballsacks.
With his ridiculous English/Welsh/Irish accent constantly changing throughout.
So you just want to complain and don't know what you're talking about I see. Google the past winners of the category and that'll tell you how a CGI film can win best production design.
I don't think you seem to know the difference between films featuring CGI as opposed to almost entire movies filmed infront of a greenscreen
Rather bizarrely his Irish accent is terrible even though he's literally...Irish. I've grown convinced he's just a genuinely bad actor. He's quite impressive in The Wire but even then tended not to be seen as one of the most interesting characters either except perhaps theoretically.
His accent in Game of Thrones has changed numerous times as well. Weird actor.
I actually much preferred Mortensen’s performance to Malik’s, which was an impressive albeit perfunctory impression of one aspect of Mercury (live performances not withstanding) seemingly cribbed from about 2 interviews, and thus incredibly one note. It’s like your mate who can do a really good impression of someone saying one particular phrase, but only that phrase, spread out over 2 hours. It’s a good performance, but you’re always aware it’s acting. But at least it is actually acting, and not just looking angry whilst actually torturing yourself (cough Leo cough)
But since you asked, my personal top films of that year would be I, Daniel Blake, Under the Shadow, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Train to Busan and The Witch, all of which are either British indies, comedies or horrors, and thus all by default things that would never get a sniff...
And I didn’t dislike either La La or Moonlight, they were both good, but you knew instantly that both would be huge contenders just because of what they were about, and when they came out (invariably about a week before the actual awards are given out, which is de rigor now for some reason) .. which is something you could also say about Green Book, too.
Well this is why award shows are shit, because all the films I’d prefer to win just aren’t the kind of films that are nominated for those kind of things, which usually come about via months of aggressive campaigning and internal Hollywood politics, far more than objective merit...
But since you asked, my personal top films of that year would be I, Daniel Blake, Under the Shadow, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Train to Busan and The Witch, all of which are either British indies, comedies or horrors, and thus all by default things that would never get a sniff...
And I didn’t dislike either La La or Moonlight, they were both good, but you knew instantly that both would be huge contenders just because of what they were about, and when they came out (invariably about a week before the actual awards are given out, which is de rigor now for some reason) .. which is something you could also say about Green Book, too.
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Not really, they’re just both quite shit films so all the tugging people are doing over them seemed odd to me.
Ehh, is it anything special? I guess it depends what they’re up against tbf. I can’t say I saw any of the other films in that category so I can’t really judge.
I just watched 15 minutes of the Oscars. Seriously, how can it be so bad? I don't remember it being this shit before, so cheesy it's incredible.
I'll have to google it later but is it from the Graham Norton school of west cork accents?