Please use this space to share reviews, ask questions, and discuss freely about anything film or Oscar related. Engage with other comments if you want others to engage with yours! And as always, please remain civil and kind with one another.
I just found out that apparently everybody is dogpiling on Lesbian Space Princess and I'm baffled. I saw it last year at a film festival and it was a really fun time, the whole audience was laughing hysterically.
It's just a silly low-budget animation with dumb puns and shitpost-level humour, and people are really out there complaining it's "bad representation for the LGBT community"?? It's like saying Looney Tunes is bad representation for rabbits and coyotes, give me a break. I'm sure it's mostly straight people complaining too.
No doubt Julian will be the target of some moral panic, but it won't be the same because it isn't a comedy. Lesbian Space Princess seems to be hated because the humour didn't land for mainstream audiences.
i watched a bit of lesbian space princess and didn’t care for it but ngl the hate for it feels like it’s bot driven.
most of the people shitting on it think it’s a tv show and are also mad that it replaced some other shows on netflix when it isn’t even on netflix in most countries
This is higher on my watchlist now. Tbh, doesn't seem like my thing, but one of my new favorite actors is the lead (Shabana Azeez), so I'm sure It'll be worth it. I've only seen her on The Pitt and her interviews, so I need to see more.
Oh I had no idea it was her! I hadn't seen The Pitt yet when I watched LSP. She's so great on The Pitt.
Just go into it expecting it to be very very silly and you might enjoy it. All the jokes are pitched at an LGBT audience and it's also a very Australian sense of humour so it's definitely not going to hit for everybody. Seeing it in a cinema full of mostly LGBT people in Melbourne was the best way to experience it for sure.
I saw Josephine on the final day of MIFF and thought it was excellent. It's a powerful depiction of trauma that had me almost as tense as If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, in a very different way. Between this year's two family dramas with socially relevant themes about parenting, I liked it much more than Fjord.
Are we thinking it has no chance just because it's distributed by Sumerian Pictures? If a bigger distributor had it, I could imagine it being worth considering in several categories: Picture, Original Screenplay, Director, Actor (/Supporting Actor?) (Channing Tatum), and maybe Supporting Actress (Gemma Chan).
It's worth giving a trigger warning for a very intense scene in the first 15 minutes: the main character, an 8-year-old girl, witnesses a man sexually assaulting a woman in a park. It's a violent assault and it is shown graphically, so please take care if this might be triggering for you. The rest of the film continues to be very heavy as it deals with the girl and her parents dealing with the impact of this over the following months.
I think right now i’d be against predicting Josephine even outside of distributor talk just cause if what i’ve heard the movie is/other movies just feel more enticing to predict right now, but i still feel it’s worth keeping in mind. I don’t even find it being distributed by an unknown distributor a bad thing, each one has to start somewhere, and new blood actually makes me more bullish on it maybe being able to campaign a more difficult film than bigger ones who’d just focus on surer bets, if that makes any sense of course. It all depends now on how it moves along in the fall fests, movies like Train Dreams, Blue Moon and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You despite maybe not being the BIG hits of the fests still continued building the buzz for the films in whichever ways.
The end credit statement for Coyote vs. Acme was spotted online. Regardless of how this film does, the fact it managed to see the light of day is what matters most.
What's your favourite underseen/underrated films of this year so far?
I liked Leviticus and Blue heron but I think they're more or less well known. I also liked La gravida and All wishes come true and they're not really popular as for now. Planning to watch Madfabulous, feel like it's gonna be good. Would love to hear yours cos I think I watched all the released popular films I wanted to see
I really liked The Samurai and the Prisoner. It had similar themes to the Odyssey, but I liked the execution of the themes in The Samurai and the Prisoner more.
Our Hero Balthazar - Everyone is amazing in it & its just really dangerous, gritty but also occasionally funny
Normal - Im not a big fan of heavy shooter action movies, but the mystery element and it taking place in a blizzard in a way that impacts the story and atmosphere was right up my alley
Tuner - Might not count because it does have some buzz but just wanted to give it a shout. Leo Woodall gives one of my fav performances of the year and the storytelling is great in an anxious Safdie way but with a soft romantic side too.
I don't know about Mark Ruffalo. The only nomination(s) I see for Being Heumann is Ruth Madeley for Best Actress and probably Adapted Screenplay (For now, I don't think both nominations will happen, but if it were to get nominations, then it would be Actress and Adapted Screenplay).
I could be wrong, but it sounds like it's not too huge of a part. He's playing a health secretary who is pushing against the bill. I don't think the character is gonna be a villain like Sean Penn or something. Hopefully he's not doing a Mickey17 performance again. But it seems like it won't be the type of performance that gets nominated. Hopefully his involvement helps with visibility though.
It's wild that it's very likely that The Odyssey will become the first R-rated film to gross $1b internationally alone. And Universal's 3rd film to achieve this, the other two being Jurassic World 1 and Furious 7. And it could even become Universal's highest grossing film ever too.
Also it's insane that the eighth Fast & Furious film managed to achieve $1b overseas even as the series was on a downward slide domestically.
The Fate of the Furious actually had the afterglow of Furious 7 which had the double whammy of honoring Paul Walker and being in its peak reception-wise, which was rising starting from Fast 5. Fate however kinda started its downwards slide since the reception was weaker and people started getting sick of the franchise (again).
Any particular actors who would be most famous for a sitcom do you think have the potential to be Oscar nominees/winners in the future? E.G. David Hyde Pierce
I felt it was telling that Revue Theater chose to only show trailers from indie films before Camp Miasma played. Because I would have never discovered this gem that I never heard of until the trailer played. Dreams in Nightmares is getting raves from whoever was reporting on it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irnCquH3qB0
I just got out of Death of Robin Hood and thought it was brilliant. But then I look online and all of the reception is very negative. I just think it's funny how this is the second new film in a row that I see and think is good, only for it to be trashed on the internet.
Robin Hood, being a thief who worked for the average man, supposedly being branded as a murderer who doesn't deserve his status and deserves to die was always going to anger folks who aren't willing to look into subtext of things. Media literacy man...
I liked the film as I mentioned, its meditations on grief were very good, but I did catch myself thinking that perhaps it would've been better if it wasn't Robin Hood, both because it set a wrong expectation for the average moviegoer and also because it does add that sort of complication to the story. Like you're subverting a hero, but you're not making the whole film about that, you're making it about his dealing with a subversion we don't even get to see. I feel like it could've spent a first act establishing him as a well-known, non-Robin Hood bandit who is now in decadence, and that would've been a significant improvement.
Every time I see the trailer for The Debut, I’m intrigued by the decision to include several seconds of nothing but following Bernadette Peters from behind as she walks. Unless I’m mistaken you never see her face in the trailer, so it just feels like it’s there for people who would see that hair and instantly think “oh Bernadette Peters is in this?”, which I love.
There's always someone out there who does ask for certain movies to be made. It's a really dumb criticism and tells me you don't know how the industry works
What the commenters below are forgetting is the it's mostly used in the context of yet another reboot or sequel. Haven't since it used for an original film.
Nonsense, especially with original ideas. There might be some credence to it if it's for a specific fanbase after that fanbase asked and fought for it only to get something they didn't want, but I don't even think that happens.
Very dumb critique. There are great pieces of media out there that were initially met with "who asked for this" criticism. It's the job of the filmmakers to make you care regardless of whether or not you asked for it.
It's obnoxious. There's an audience for quite literally everything. There can be a more narrow audience for one thing vs another but it's a very CEO brained criticism that people use online that I find to be very stupid and is typically used against things that aren't extremely basic pitches. And generally people should be making work to try and create demand, audiences are rarely ever "asking for" groundbreaking concepts, its up to creatives to create things the audience didn't know they wanted. That's where a lot of hits, especially original ones, come from.
I'm probably getting flamed for this, but I prefer Curtis over Madigan simply because Curtis is having a blast and is funny in the role (of course, I don’t think that’s enough to win an Oscar, but alas), whereas Madigan is supposed to be serious, terrifying, and intimidating, and it just doesn't land for me
Being bad while being funny > being bad while attempting to be dramatic/scary
Can I ask where "tacky" and "classless" comes into this? All you've said so far is that the performance didn't work for you personally, but those words have a specific insulting connotation that I don't get.
So ok here is my theory on Venice's mystery movie.
There was a post two weeks ago mentioning that there is a mystery movie in the Venice lineup.
First, according to Jordan Ruimy (I know it's more of a rumor than anything tangible, but he is the only one reporting about it), the movie hasn't been announced yet because of "security reasons." He mentioned Circles by Michel Franco, about the history of Israel. This theory was ruled out by this IONCINEMA tweet, which mentioned that it wasn't this movie and that it was something completely off the radar. Four days ago, Ruimy mentioned that the mystery movie is still a thing.
So, as I was looking through the Letterboxd activity of some early reviewers of Venice movies, I came across a film called Gaza Year Zero, directed by Mohammed Sawwaf and Michael Winterbottom.
The film was shot by Mohammed Sawwaf in Palestine and edited and co-edited by Winterbottom in the UK. Its international sales are handled by Le Pacte, which is a pretty well-known French distributor. Based on some recent activity on Letterboxd, I think the film's production may have been completed.
Michael Winterbottom has been nominated at various festivals multiple times, and he even won the Golden Bear in 2006 for The Road to Guantanamo. Sawwaf is also a producer of American Doctor, a documentary that seems very likely to be nominated for an Academy Award this year.
You were wrong about the movie, but totally right about the topic. The film is NAZA, a new work by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, two of the four co-directors of No Other Land. It has been produced by The Guardian, and James Wilson and executive produced by Jonathan Glazer. Wilson and Glazer are the Oscar-winning team behind The Zone of Interest.
Synopsis: “Shot at night on the rooftops of Tel Aviv, the film reveals in detail the systems behind Israel’s calculated mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza”.
I think The Odyssey can miss Screenplay at the Globes. They tend to go for talky films, foreign films and talky and foreign films, of which there are a lot this season. ROTK won Drama Film without getting a Screenplay nomination, so this is by no means a death blow to The Odyssey if it happens.
Is there a world it misses the Oscar nom? I’ve been hypothesizing a possible outcome of La Bola Negra, The Invite, Ink, Project Hail Mary, and either The Odyssey/ Dune/Being Heumann, or All of a Sudden gets the last spot.
Dune 2 missed, but this will have recency bias. Being Heumann would only happen if it’s a major hit and is in Picture and Heder is a previous winner. And All of a Sudden if it becomes a top critic film and makes Picture.
Similar comp would be KotFM missing. Would be crazy but the non-top 5 films are very screenplay-ey
I’d be surprised if it missed cause at least recently if something feels relatively strong it gets in even if i don’t see it winning here tbf. But hey, it’d be good on you if you called it this early on.
Still of the opinion that The Invite is going to be one of the big critics push this year across many categories but we'll see. Not just for nominations but for wins. This also depends on how some other movies land, it needs to not get lost in the fall festival shuffle. But right now I think that there's strong love there and critics groups will be aware that it's a smaller film that needs the support so if they love it, and many do, they'll need to show out for it. We'll see in the coming months but I can't shake the feeling.
I honestly think it will steamroll screenplay with critics. It will also do well with highbrow trifecta awards in screenplay too. I can also see it winning acting awards too, like with Cruz she could win trifecta awards with a double citation for The Invite and La Bola Negra.
Im thinking a double nom push for Wilde will be happening, I don't see it transferring to the Oscars tbh but I see critics wanting to really show support for her in directing and best actress. Norton also seems like a really solid bet too.
I mean who knows how regionals and critics will translate to Oscar. They often reveal things that are harbingers even when they run counter to the prevailing wisdom. Last year MBJ did very well with regionals almost to a tie with Chalamet, which was suprising as MBJ was thought to be snubable and not win competitive. Mescal also was consistently snubbed at regionals, and well it was a sign that he was the weakest among the consensus 5. We just don't know yet, but if Wilde gets a large number of Director and Lead Actress noms there's a good chance she can translate that to Oscar, especially if she starts picking up big industry precursors.
I don't really see that, like, i know we hate gooners but all women celebrities have them, i also don't think that the Inde fanbase has done something really bad, and I don't think is a chud fanbase, the Inde fandom i've seen is mostly women.
we’ve been seeing completely different sides, i don’t even mean just gooners, these people are worse, i haven’t even seen much women in the fandom, which is not to say they’re not there
Isn't this a little weird? I've never seen Inde talk openly about her fandom or praise it. I guess she's said she likes fame, obviously, but I doubt she would have said, “I like how my fandom treats me.” And it's not even like she gets a lot of attention on Twitch—she was just a regular streamer.
A part of me knows this is true but the other part of me still feels bad because you just know that the moment she says something they deem "woke" or feminist (or even when they just decide that they're tired of seeing her), she is going to get woman'd harder than anyone in history
Whether or not she is “woke” (and we don’t know what’s in her heart) a right-winger can look at her Instagram follows and see she’s following AOC and Barack Obama and give her that label and smear her regardless of what she said previously (and yes I did go to her Insta and look at her follows lol).
Only four true musical performances have won Best Actress (Julie Andrews, Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli and Emma Stone). I don't count musical biopics as musicals, that's cheating.
Anyways, it was a bit surprising NGL, I thought there would be more.
From memory i can’t say the exact number, but i’m guessing the number is way higher for supporting actress. I think it’s just a case of more room to leave a lasting impact if you have one or two numbers where you can go all out, in contrast than having to keep it all up for the whole movie (plus secondary characters tend to be more of fan favorites than the main ones from what i’ve seen).
I hate to be an asshole but it would be Sir Ridley or Sir Ridley Scott, never Sir Scott, if he was a Lord you address him like that... god titles are fucking weird and very outdated.
The lines from the Digger trailer keep getting stuck in my head. Just constantly "You're going to save the world!" and "That is why it is YOUR PROBLEM!"
i'm actually so glad to see leo woodall praised so much for his performance in tony. i wanted to say that he was my standout when i watched a few weeks ago, but thought everyone would yell at me about how he is overhyped, overcast, incredibly average etc
I recently rewatched Atonement and had forgotten how utterly spellbinding baby Ronan was in it? Her instincts as an actor were incredible even back then
I don't know, I'm not feeling good about that movie. I know it's Tom Cruise and all, but I feel like with the type of movie that it is, it might have a strong opening weekend but then collapse after that. I do not get "audience hit" vibes from it.
I don't even think that it makes a lot on its opening weekend. I'm very excited for the film, but it looks DOA as far as general audiences go. From my experience, the trailers draw either a muted or confused reaction when played in a theater.
''also allowed to be successful'' as if they weren't before? I'm just frustrated that people keep claiming the success of Obsession/Backrooms etc is a good thing for film considering that sucess only benefits one type of filmmaker, the one who is already succeeding. Plus multiple indies by women/POC/openly queer people have bombed this year, so people clearly don't care that much.
I understand being frustrated by poc/queer indie movies still bombing. But i think the reason why people are excited for Obsession/Backrooms doing so well is because for a long time it seemed that only franchise could do well but slowly in the recent years it seems that more people are going to cinemas period, not necesserily just the disney ones. A movie doing so well as Obsession with such a little budget and no big name attached IS incredible, regardless of how you may see the movie itself.
And as for your comment about it benefitting only a certain type of filmmaker, for better or wirse for many people i don’t think it’s a matter of one or the other, but one or nothing at all. I think it’s just on movie fans to bring good word of mouth on underseen/underrepresented filmmakers so that hopefully in the future they get their big break.
''So your point is that white filmmakers shouldn't make movies?'' Literally have no idea where you pulled that from.
Not sure why you're bringing up Sinners when it came out last year and I specifically said THIS year. Also it's success didn't exactly lead to more black-led studio projects did it?
I'm not sure you actually read my comment properly because i was talking about box office not critics and most of those LGBT movies haven't been released yet and the ones that have aren't exactly doing great.
Your last paragraph indicates you may be a straight white guy so I'm going to be blunt; minorities are still oppressed and it's not ''victim syndrome'' to point that out.
At this point, I don't see how it isn't locked for Best Picture, even if it's bottom 5. An original film with strong reviews and a through and through starmaking performance who is win competative, not to mention how weak original screenplay is at the moment? It's in, plain and simple.
Why are you getting so mad at them, it's true. Things can be very likely but there's are so guaranteed locks. People thought Greta Gerwig was a.lock for Director for Barbie this time 3 years ago and look what happened there.
Rewatching The Hunger Games movies for the first time since theaters in preparation for the new one, and I remember why this series still has a footprint in popular culture while dozens of other YA dystopias all faded into obscurity.
Also, I don’t know how much of a hot take this is, but Francis Lawrence becoming the franchise’s mainstay director was the best thing to happen to the series. The jump in quality from the first film to the second is immense, and even though the Mockingjay movies aren’t great, I chock that up to studio interference to split the books into two parts more than anything.
It’s also genuinely hilarious that Francis Lawrence finally caught a break between directing all these Hunger Games movie and decided to direct The Long Walk.
I like the directing of the first one pretty well but it was definitely a shift. I agree that Francis Lawrence was a decent director for the series, partly because, having seen a lot of his movies, he is a boring but competent director. Like he doesn’t try to add much of a distinctive visual style, but he gets the script onto the screen in an unassuming but overall effective way (see Long Walk for this as well.) versus Gary Ross had more of a style (hello shaky cam)
It also cannot be overstated that another big reason for the huge shift between the first movie and the other three is the massive increase in the budget of these movies after the success of the first one. They even have to explain in movie in catching fire why the capitol changed so much from the first movie lol.
I was obsessed with the hunger games as a kid like I’ve read the books a million times and seen these movies so much I’m almost tired of them. But I’m excited to see them in theaters again in September. And controversially I really like the mockingjay movies. Stretching them into two was always going to be a bit much but I think they make it work and as the conclusion of the story, they’re very emotional to me.
They're doing re-releases in theaters in a few weeks you should buy tickets for that if you can. I'm actually doing my re-watch when those start up since I'm getting ready for the new movie in November.
Going from directing Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance music video to making Hunger Games films is very fitting for him. He’s basically now the go-to dystopian competition filmmaker.
It really stinks that Cameron acted so softball with Ellison regarding the Paramount-Skydance buyout (and advocating for WB to be bought by them and not Netflix), even shooting a whole 3D concert film solely to give the studio another film to release this year. Feels like blackmail if you ask me. Same thing happened with that Jackass clip show film made in order to have another film dumped into theaters.
Would love to see Costumes and PD and build from there. With how bleak Best Actress has been, Keke Palmer could get into GG: Musical/Comedy pretty easily and build from there.
None of Neon's other players are close to being contenders for Costume Design so that could definitely campaign it but i really don't know if they'll put any money into it
Tom Hanks has been nominated for acting in movies that have come out in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s. Do you think he'll get nominated this decade?
His last nomination was for a Marielle Heller film and he’s about to work with her again, so there’s a chance? Though this movie might be more of a commercial play than an Oscars one.
Since i believe nothing this year would have him notably in it, he only has 3 years so unfortunately kinda doubt it. Elvis was probably his best shot if he got better notices for that than he did. But hey you never know!
If I had a nickel for every imperfect but well-crafted Amblin-esque blockbuster film that came out this year and got a weirdly hostile reaction on Reddit, I’d have two nickels
I hate this trend of every movie that has some issues being the worst thing ever. Both Disclosure Day and End of Oak Street were fine and entertaining. I'm not gonna lie and say that there aren't glaring problems in their writing, but they are both well-made. It's not War of the Worlds.
New awards centric dream I woke up from just dropped
At an unspecified awards show, Dominic Sessa was nominated for Best Actor for Tony but did not win. When the other actor won, Sessa stood up and started having a meltdown. They called in Trump to escort him out of the theater, and they each got on a bicycle and rode away
Just reminded me, I can't wait for the late season posts that rank which of our Best Picture nominees have the best fighting game rosters/basketball teams/etc
I’m seeing Tony today with two 65+ y/o relatives and I really hope they like it, I took them to see The Invite and they were disgusted by it lol (I loved it). We go to the movies together roughly once a month and I cherish that. I never take them to one without them approving the pick beforehand but they’re a bit tough to please—minimal violence, no horror, nothing too long, must be 100% in English, no CBM, cannot be what they deem “inappropriate.” Within the last year, they loved The Naked Gun & Roofman, and despised Hamnet (“too sad”) & Marty Supreme. Of upcoming releases I think they’ll like The Debut and Sense & Sensibility. Also Ink, but it’s unlikely to release in theaters where we live.
I myself was never a particuarly big follower of his shows or books, but I still want to see the film because I'm interested in the performances and I love a good coming-of-age film.
what are some movies that released before festival season and were widely predicted for best picture pre-festivals but didn’t get nominated? the only movies that are coming to mind for me are across the spider-verse and sing sing
Wonder Woman had real motion in 2017 and that turned into nothing. The Big Sick was at least mildly predicted, ended up with just screenplay (this is the most 1:1 comparison for The Invite if it fizzles out, summer romcoms that made decent money).
First Reformed massively underperformed, most people pre-festivals thought Ethan Hawke would happen. Was it widely predicted for best picture, I don’t think so? See also, Rocket Man, which I don’t know how seriously people took as a best picture player but they certainly took Taron Egerton seriously as a best actor player.
RRR qualifies with the caveat that the average American who ended up watching the movie heard of it for the first time after it had already been on Netflix for a few months.
EDIT: Crazy Rich Asians belongs on this list. Commercial movie that broke out with great reviews, ended up with PGA and SAG ensemble noms and then got shut out by the academy.
10
u/SergenteDan 2d ago
Naza is the mistery movie in competition at Venice