Official 90th Oscar Nominations Discussion Thread (1 Viewer)

[Hanson]

1. Phantom Thread - I've been thinking about this movie all day since I saw it. Maybe not my favorite film of the year, but my favorite of the nominated films for sure.

2. Lady Bird - If you want to argue the movie is slight, I won't put up much of a fight. But it has great performances and a knowing script.

3. Three Billboards - I enjoyed this much more while I was watching than in the days that followed. What was thrilling and entertaining in the moment feels less cohesive and more problematic in retrospect.

4. The Shape of Water - As I said before, it's Free Willy with fucking.

5. Get Out - I think I need to see this again, a lot of themes and metaphors went over my head because I was expecting more jokes.

6. The Darkest Hour - I liked this movie far more than I expected, and while I will be rooting for Day-Lewis, Oldman's performance is definitely Oscar worthy.

7. Call Me By Your Name - Regardless of whether Chalamet's character could be a consenting adult, I was quite icked out by the enthusiasm with which his parents offered him to Armie Hammer.

8. The Post - Homework

9. Dunkirk - It was a movie about an endless stream of soldiers flailing about in the water, 3 anonymous pilots running out of fuel, and a dude who pretty much looks like all the other dudes in the movie taking a dump on the beach.

 

[Wayne_j]

Today I saw Oscar Nominated Animated Short Films.

After seeing the entire category my rankings are:
1. Lou
2. Revolting Rhymes
3. Dear Basketball
4. Garden Party
5. Negative Space

I enjoyed all of the shorts and the 3 commended but not nominated shorts that were added to pad the running time to feature length.

The most likely winners are probably the Pixar short Lou and the Kobe Bryant short Dear Basketball which features a John Williams score.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

Congratulations to Call Me By Your Name winning Best Adapted Screenplay at the Writer's Guild Awards last night. I think the beautiful speech by the loving and tolerant father at the end of this film single-handedly sealed the victory, but because it was adapted almost verbatim from novel, credit really should go to the original author more than the adaptation. It was for that reason, some of us voted elsewhere.

The most important award of Best Original Screenplay went to Get Out by Jordan Peele. That should shake things up nicely for the Oscars.

 

[bujaki]

Get Out lost me when an important character whose skull had been bashed in (brain dead) suddenly reappears and attacks our hapless hero. Now, even horror and sci-fi must adhere to some logic, and a human being whose brains have been splattered can not resuscitate unless as a zombie. So that attack was a cheap shot pandering to a cheap thrill.
The ending also defies logic since someone will be held responsible for all the killings and the investigation will inevitably lead to the guest. One of the deleted endings, though bleak, works perfectly for the film and would have been more realistic.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

Yeah, I don't get Get Out winning Best Original Screenplay. The film already won in perhaps the most important category - box office smash. The script was fresh, funny, scary and original, but so were others in the category. Maybe it gives hope to indie script writers everywhere they can get a film made for less money, make the social commentary they want, and still hit it out of the park.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Congratulations to Call Me By Your Name winning Best Adapted Screenplay at the Writer's Guild Awards last night. I think the beautiful speech by the loving and tolerant father at the end of this film single-handedly sealed the victory, but because it was adapted almost verbatim from novel, credit really should go to the original author more than the adaptation. It was for that reason, some of us voted elsewhere.

James Ivory winning Best Adapted Screenplay is about as close as you can get for a lock at this year's Oscars. He's a beloved figure of cinema, and the movie has a lot of fans.

The most important award of Best Original Screenplay went to Get Out by Jordan Peele. That should shake things up nicely for the Oscars.

If Academy voters want to go a different direction for the big races (Best Picture, Best Directing) I could seem them handing Get Out an Original Screenplay Oscar as a consolation prize. It's a category that's been used that way plenty of times before.

 

[Wayne_j]

Today I saw the Live Action Shorts. My rankings are:

1. The Eleven O'clock
2. The Silent Child
3. DeKalb Elementary
4. My Nephew Emmett
5. Watu Wote/ All of Us

4 of the 5 shorts included the film makers watching their shorts being nominated in their credits.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Get Out lost me when an important character whose skull had been bashed in (brain dead) suddenly reappears and attacks our hapless hero. Now, even horror and sci-fi must adhere to some logic, and a human being whose brains have been splattered can not resuscitate unless as a zombie. So that attack was a cheap shot pandering to a cheap thrill.

It's a play on a traditional horror movie trope. (Also, consider what was going on in general -- it's possible that science-y shenanigans were involved there.)

The ending also defies logic since someone will be held responsible for all the killings and the investigation will inevitably lead to the guest. One of the deleted endings, though bleak, works perfectly for the film and would have been more realistic.

I had the opposite opinion -- IMO the alternate ending was overly obvious and pushed things in too much of a Western Union direction. The ending they went with felt fresher to me. (IIRC, Peele said something in the commentary about preferring the alternate ending, but I forget the details.)

As for the investigation leading to the hero,

Spoiler

The police would have found the remains of all the crazy medical gear in the basement, and maybe even the video, which would have backed up his crazy story.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

Apparently, there is some big backlash against Three Billboards Outside Ebbings, Missouri for ostensibly being bigger than it's britches aspiring to some larger social comment. It's being compared to Crash as a picture that doesn't deserve to win best picture with it's awkward posturings on race. And the PC police have it in their targets.

To which I reply... WTF?! It's just a goddamn movie.

None of those thoughts crept into my mind when I was assessing this film and enjoying it to an nth degree. It's a great story. End of story. The writing and acting are fantastic. The story twists and bends in unexpected directions. The dialogue is arch, funny, pointed and achingly on point. It's just a well-conceived, plotted and delivered piece of entertainment. 'nuff said.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/feb/15/crash-worst-oscar-best-picture-winner-three-billboards

 

[Tino]

I don’t think it’s been mentioned in this thread but the biggest disappointment regarding nominations for me is the omission of James McAvoy’s amazing performance in Split.

 

[Matt Hough]

I don’t think it’s been mentioned in this thread but the biggest disappointment regarding nominations for me is the omission of James McAvoy’s amazing performance in Split.

I was disappointed he was forgotten, too, but the film appeared too early in the year for it to be remembered.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

Split was the very first screener I got, so the studio was definitely pushing him for a nomination, and he did a fantastic job. But I suspect there was room for only one best actor nomination in this 'horror/psyche/thriller' genre category this time around and it went to Daniel Kaluuya for Get Out (which also came out long ago). Anthony Hopkins pulled it off with a psycho baddie, so maybe McAvoy gets some Oscar love further along in his career.

 

[Malcolm R]

I was disappointed he was forgotten, too, but the film appeared too early in the year for it to be remembered.

Get Out was released in February.

 

[Tino]

As was Silence Of The Lambs.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

None of those thoughts crept into my mind when I was assessing this film and enjoying it to an nth degree. It's a great story. End of story. The writing and acting are fantastic. The story twists and bends in unexpected directions. The dialogue is arch, funny, pointed and achingly on point. It's just a well-conceived, plotted and delivered piece of entertainment. 'nuff said.

Sounds like it was a lot better than Crash!

 

[Wayne_j]

I'm about to go see "The Insult" which was nominated for foreign language film.

 

[bujaki]

I'm about to go see "The Insult" which was nominated for foreign language film.

Excellent film!

 

[cinemiracle]

And as expected zero nominations for Wonder Woman or Detroit among others.

DETROIT was a masterpiece. Even more deserved as I was in NYC during the riots of 1967. It really hit home for me after seeing this film.PHANTOM THREAD was also a brilliant film in every respect.

 

[Wayne_j]

Excellent film!

I agree, I was riveted the entire film.

 

[Mark Booth]

We are hosting 20 of our friends in the Booth Bijou Garage Theater for Oscar night. We're going to show 'Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri' prior to the Oscars. Then we'll break for some eats (two of our friends have volunteered to put together some culinary masterpieces for us, in effect, the evening will be catered by our friends). And then we'll settle in for a nice group viewing of the 90th Academy Awards on the big 110" Booth Bijou screen.

Should be fun!

Mark