UHD Review Everything Everywhere All At Once – UHD Review (1 Viewer)

[Jeffrey D]

Here's one neat fact. EEAAO is the first film since Silence of the Lambs in 1992 to win best picture and actually come out BEFORE the previous year's ceremony (by just two days!).

That is a neat, and surprising fact. I know films are strategically released in the Autumn season, for the purpose of keeping it fresh in the mind of the academy.

 

[Kyle_D]

Which raises an interesting question: what were the most widely-embraced BP picks?

And I don't mean seen through the prism of time - not movies that now get uniform praise/acceptance as BP.

The ones that got the least amount of Monday Morning QBing/immediate complaints.

Of those awarded during my lifetime, only the following seemed to receive more celebration than criticism in the immediate Monday/Tuesday morning aftermath, and their reputations generally remain solid:

Parasite
12 Years a Slave (it was universally acclaimed, and nobody ever said anything bad about it, but it has faded a bit because no one seems eager to re-watch it)
No Country for Old Men (Even those who preferred TWBB seemed to agree that No Country was also a worthy choice, though a contingent of audiences were vocally flummoxed by the ending)
Return of the King (yes, some complained about too many endings, but the trilogy was almost universally adored, and the win was a cultural event we haven't really seen since)
Titanic (as with RotK, the win was an EVENT, and the backlash didn't reach fever pitch until a few years later)
Forest Gump (a lot of people dunk on this win now, but the film was a massive, beloved hit at the time, and Hanks was at the peak of his stardom. Tarantino was still regarded in some corners as a novelty flavor-of-the-season. He hadn't yet fully cemented himself his reputation as an all-time auteur. Meanwhile, Shawshank famously didn't find an audience until after the awards)
Schindler's List
Unforgiven
Silence of the Lambs

IMO, the rise of the "awards consulting" cottage industry has really soured audience perception of the Academy as an arbiter of quality. Ever since the Shakespeare in Love upset, audiences seem to have clued in that the Academy awards the Best Campaign, not necessarily the Best Picture. The internet has also amplified a lot of negative voices that did not get a lot of mainstream press in the 90s.

 

[Sam Posten]

From what I understand the hype train is built on goodwill not promotional dollars. Any of you who have facts to back that up please post em

How Everything Everywhere All At Once Went From Intriguing Indie to Awards Juggernaut - IGN

Everything Everywhere All At Once had to stay in awards voters’ minds for an entire year. Here’s how they did it.

www.ign.com

Most of the overhyped comments sound like sour grapes from folks who didn’t like it and are mad other people did.

 

[Kyle_D]

From what I understand the hype train is built on goodwill not promotional dollars. Any of you who have facts to back that up please post em

It's not an "either/or" thing. Goodwill gives the studio confidence to spend money on awards consultants and campaigns, which fuel goodwill, and so on. Every single picture in the awards conversation hired some form of awards consultant -- pointing that out is not a specific rag on EEAAO.

From the New York Times:

Think about everything you know about this year’s Oscar nominees and, chances are, it was proliferated by an awards consultant. “Top Gun: Maverick” saved the movie business with its nearly $1.5 billion at the box office. “Everything Everywhere All at Once” is the exuberant sci-fi romp that created some much-needed opportunities for Asian American actors. “All Quiet on the Western Front” is the biggest antiwar film ever (despite still technically being a war film). Vote for “The Fabelmans” if you love Spielberg and the movies and “Tár” if you want to go with the unanimous critics’ pick.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/08/magazine/oscars-campaign.html

The folks behind EEAAO ran a masterful campaign in phase 2.

 

[Lord Dalek]

"Goodwill" is not a word I associate with the Weinstein Machine. Manipulative? Maybe. Corrupt? Probably. Abusive? You bet your ass.

 

[Kent K H]

I have never seen Forrest Gump (a) out of pure spite; and (b) because it embodies the trope so perfectly skewered in Tropic Thunder. I don't know if I ever will see it. I have liked most of Zemeckis' films, particularly Used Cars, BTTF and Cast Away, but Forrest Gump has never held any appeal for me. That being said, it is culturally significant, not the least because of its improvement on techniques used in Woody Allen's Zelig for inserting its central character into historical moments, and I would not begrudge anyone who wants to watch it.

This is one of those weird things where I certainly liked Gump when it came out and still hold a degree of affection for it, but also sort of had it ruined by a combination of the people who love it often being people who drive me crazy and just finding it more hollow as I've matured.

Nowadays it sort of strikes me like the Baby Boomer Santa number from the Community Glee parody.


Admittedly, one of the things that I do still like about it is that it's pretty anti-counter culture while so many of its fans see it as a surface celebration of those things, which is the same reason that the very vocal critical minority hated it.

When it comes to EEAAO, I was a big fan of it, but boy, was I exhausted by the end of it. While the concepts may not be entirely new, the way they were put together and the visual language used to express them made for a very unique experience. Probably didn't hurt that it delivered the "multiverse of madness" concept better than the Doctor Strange movie that actually put it in the title and for a fraction of the cost. I'm honestly not sure how it will age and I'm highly curious what people, including myself, will think of it in 30 years.

 

[Doug2000]

I remember being astonished and sad when "Silence of The Lambs" won. I found the movie absolutely depraved. It made me wonder at the decline of U S society that such a film would be praised.

And here we are now - the movie that just won Best Pic and a slew of other awards - features a fight seen with two pants-less "villains" kick fighting against the central character, each with a dildo like projectile shoved up their butts' flapping around like a mandator's sword in a bull.

 

[Edwin-S]

And here we are now - the movie that just won Best Pic and a slew of other awards - features a fight seen with two pants-less "villains" kick fighting against the central character, each with a dildo like projectile shoved up their butts' flapping around like a mandator's sword in a bull.

Ugh.....you just had to remind me........

 

[Robert Crawford]

I finally watched my 4K/UHD this morning and thought the movie was great with some strong messaging. I can understand why some people didn’t like it or were ambivalent towards it, but I’m not one of those people.

A great looking and sounding disc!

 

[Ronald Epstein]

I finally watched my 4K/UHD this morning and thought the movie was great with some strong messaging. I can understand why some people didn’t like it or were ambivalent towards it, but I’m not one of those people.

A great looking and sounding disc!

Happy to hear you finally got to watch and enjoy this film, Robert.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Happy to hear you finally got to watch and enjoy this film, Robert.

My best friend hates this movie! He can't believe I liked it because he thought it was stupid. Let's just say, his movie tastes are more traditional without

Spoiler

hotdog fingers.

 

[B-ROLL]

My best friend hates this movie! He can't believe I liked it because he thought it was stupid. Let's just say, his movie tastes are more traditional without

Spoiler

hotdog fingers.

... so for them it

Spoiler: for Spoiler in previous post

didn't cut the mustard

!

 

[TJPC]

I'm with your friend. The most amazing part of the movie is that it won all those awards to me.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I'm with your friend. The most amazing part of the movie is that it won all those awards to me.

Everyone has an opinion!

 

[B-ROLL]

I'm with your friend. The most amazing part of the movie is that it won all those awards to me.

...only in this version of the Multiverse ...

 

[Mike Frezon]

I finished this film the other day. I actually started it the week before. But after getting 90 minutes in (the end of Act 1), I got interrupted. I was strangely ambivalent about getting back to it and finishing it up.

The film did not resonate for me. I really only watched it because it won Best Picture. I really knew nothing about it going in.

As the discussion in this (and many other threads) constantly reminds me, I need to reevaluate my interest in those films which receive rewards from AMPAS. And now with an emphasis on diversity in the filmmaking process having an impact on a film's worthiness for inclusion in the awards process, there is even more need for me to reevaluate any dependency on AMPAS' consideration in order to decide whether to bother watching a film.

But finish the film I did. It seemed like an overly complicated mess as Yeoh's character jumped from universe to universe in this most implausible of plotlines. Subtract the in-your-face special effects and it seemed in its essence to be a college film project by students who think they are much more creative than they really are.

But that's me. I'm glad people enjoyed it and don't begrudge them that at all. It's just not my cup of tea. It played more like a comic book film than anything else and I gave up on those quite a long time ago.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

I finished this film the other day. I actually started it the week before. But after getting 90 minutes in (the end of Act 1), I got interrupted. I was strangely ambivalent about getting back to it and finishing it up.

The film did not resonate for me. I really only watched it because it won Best Picture. I really knew nothing about it going in.

As the discussion in this (and many other threads) constantly reminds me, I need to reevaluate my interest in those films which receive rewards from AMPAS. And now with an emphasis on diversity in the filmmaking process having an impact on a film's worthiness for inclusion in the awards process, there is even more need for me to reevaluate any dependency on AMPAS' consideration in order to decide whether to bother watching a film.

But finish the film I did. It seemed like an overly complicated mess as Yeoh's character jumped from universe to universe in this most implausible of plotlines. Subtract the in-your-face special effects and it seemed in its essence to be a college film project by students who think they are much more creative than they really are.

But that's me. I'm glad people enjoyed it and don't begrudge them that at all. It's just not my cup of tea. It played more like a comic book film than anything else and I gave up on those quite a long time ago.

I'm with you on this one, Mike.

 

[madfloyd]

I finished this film the other day. I actually started it the week before. But after getting 90 minutes in (the end of Act 1), I got interrupted. I was strangely ambivalent about getting back to it and finishing it up.

The film did not resonate for me. I really only watched it because it won Best Picture. I really knew nothing about it going in.

As the discussion in this (and many other threads) constantly reminds me, I need to reevaluate my interest in those films which receive rewards from AMPAS. And now with an emphasis on diversity in the filmmaking process having an impact on a film's worthiness for inclusion in the awards process, there is even more need for me to reevaluate any dependency on AMPAS' consideration in order to decide whether to bother watching a film.

But finish the film I did. It seemed like an overly complicated mess as Yeoh's character jumped from universe to universe in this most implausible of plotlines. Subtract the in-your-face special effects and it seemed in its essence to be a college film project by students who think they are much more creative than they really are.

But that's me. I'm glad people enjoyed it and don't begrudge them that at all. It's just not my cup of tea. It played more like a comic book film than anything else and I gave up on those quite a long time ago.

I appreciate your post.