I’ll assume that I’m excluded from that group of people as I didn’t watch Bohemian Rhapsody because it sounded shit and - unlike Black Panther - I didn’t have to accompany my kids to watch it. Having actually seen Black Panther, however, I stand by my point that it’s a piss poor decision to have it on the shortlist.
Out of interest, what’s your theory on the Academy blind-spot that gave BR an oscar nom?
It has the veneer of an award-worthy film. It looks like the kind of minutely observerd biopic, with a showy technical performance from a cool actor as another famous person*, that they usually give awards to. Like Ray or Walk the Line.
That’s all the Oscar’s is. It’s a terrible, hollow awards ceremony that usually gets all the awards wrong, and has been openly crooked since the Weinsteins rigged it for Shakespeare in Love back in the 90s.
Vice is also a bit like this. It looks like it should win awards, and utilises all the same tricks as the Big Short, which did win awards, and it has a showy technical performance from a cool actor as another famous person**, but it’s actually kinda bad. It’s just a series of sketches about Dick Cheney being a horrible person, and while Dick Cheney is undoubtedly a really, really horrible person, everyone already knew that, and it doesn’t attempt in anyway to tell us why, and it goes on forever, with no real throughline or attempt at an arc, and ends trying to tie it all to the most ridiculously on the nose metaphor ever!.... but again, it looks like an awards film. It’s got the veneer of one. So, boop, better nominate it. It’s not even got good reviews, but seems to have been nominated before it’s even come out!
Green Book also falls into this category by all accounts. But I haven’t seen it.
*which I don’t even think is really that amazing. It starts off pretty good, but then maintains exactly the same level for the entire film. It’s like when someone can do a really good impression of someone saying one particular phrase, but spread out for two hours.
** Sam Rockwell also seems to be nominated for doing an SNL bit as George Bush for 10 minutes. ‘Cos sure, why not.
Am I misremembering?
I thought I had seen both.
My Mrs has reliably informed me that there is one bit where he kisses a man. Or rather a man kisses him, and he recoils, and asks “why did you do that?” and then it fades out into vague suggestion and it never happens again.
The film seems to largely be about his love affair with a woman, which is really, really fecking weird. It’s ironically like something they’d make in the 80s, when people were still a bit squeamish about that kind of stuff.
As for drugs, there’s one scene where he’s throwing a supposedly lavish party, which just seems to consist of him wearing a silly jacket and everyone telling him not to stay up too late. Like he’s 12. It’s absolutely ridiculous. But not in the way it should be.
