The Off Topic Topic

[Jacob]

Shakespeare in Love was trash, Sheilbh, you should be ashamed 

Was not!

[Sheilbh]

Interesting - Thin Red Line would have been my second choice too

[Admiral Yi]

The only thing in Shakespeare in Love that didn't work great was the romance.  Everything else was perfect.

[HVC]

i haven't seen Shakespeare in Love, but I'm going to assume that Sheilbh's taste in films mirrors his taste in architecture and say that he's wrong haha

[The Larch]

This last set of nominees is the logical conclusion of, on one side the very unusual year it has been, with so many major studio films having their openings postponed due to the pandemic, leaving a field populated mostly by indy and Netflix films, and on the other side the culmination of the campaign that the Academy performed to diversify its voter base back in 2016 after the backlash for the #oscarssowhite, after the second year in a row of all white acting nominees in all categories.

[celedhring]

This last set of nominees is the logical conclusion of, on one side the very unusual year it has been, with so many major studio films having their openings postponed due to the pandemic, leaving a field populated mostly by indy and Netflix films, and on the other side the culmination of the campaign that the Academy performed to diversify its voter base back in 2016 after the backlash for the #oscarssowhite, after the second year in a row of all white acting nominees in all categories.

There's an also an underlying issue, the fact that the "middlebrow" movie (something that's more sophisticated than your average commercial flick, but it's still accessible to the general public) is dying. You no longer have something like, say, A Few Good Men, Shawsank Redemption, etc... a well crafted drama with big actors, coming out and being embraced by the public, and those are the movies that the Academy absolutely loved to nominate.

[Admiral Yi]

There's an also an underlying issue, the fact that the "middlebrow" movie (something that's more sophisticated than your average commercial flick, but it's still accessible to the general public) is dying. You no longer have something like, say, A Few Good Men, Shawsank Redemption, etc... a well crafted drama with big actors, coming out and being embraced by the public, and those are the movies that the Academy absolutely loved to nominate.

I'm the audience for those movies and I absolutely agree.  Michael Clayton, a Bridge of Spies, maybe Eastern Promises.  What else has there been in the last 20 years?

[Sheilbh]

I'm the audience for those movies and I absolutely agree.  Michael Clayton, a Bridge of Spies, maybe Eastern Promises.  What else has there been in the last 20 years?

Interesting - I probably wouldn't include Eastern Promises.

I mean the big obvious one is the Green Book. But other ones that have been nominated recently, I'd say, are like Trial of the Chicago 7, Three Billboards, Hidden Figures - any film about journalism

I think they're in decline but I also think that academy voters are less entranced by them than they were in their peak era (80s and 90s).

[Admiral Yi]

Interesting - I probably wouldn't include Eastern Promises.

I mean the big obvious one is the Green Book. But other ones that have been nominated recently, I'd say, are like Trial of the Chicago 7, Three Billboards, Hidden Figures - any film about journalism

I think they're in decline but I also think that academy voters are less entranced by them than they were in their peak era (80s and 90s).

I think Green Book is just a marriage of a buddy romp and a social message.  But, with categories like this you're bound to have quibbles at the edges.

How about the Merchant & Ivory body of work?   I think they fit.  Or for a crazy dark horse, how about Pulp Fiction?

[Admiral Yi]

Agree about Billboards.  Not sure about Hidden Figures.  That's the black NASA mathematicians, right?  Not a whole lot of *story* in that movie.

[Sheilbh]

I think Green Book is just a marriage of a buddy romp and a social message.  But, with categories like this you're bound to have quibbles at the edges.

How about the Merchant & Ivory body of work?   I think they fit.  Or for a crazy dark horse, how about Pulp Fiction?

I pick on Green Book because it was poor but I think an easy to get behind/not too threatening social message is a big bit of middlebrow films, no? (I also always remember one critic's damning assessment - "Driving Miss Daisy: this time the racist's in the front seat" )

Agreed on probably 90% of Merchant Ivory - I feel like there's probably a couple that are full blown A R T.

Unsure on Pulp Fiction Maybe in my head there's always an edge to Tarantino.

The English Patient, which I adore - and any serious/adult movie by Spielberg.

[Savonarola]

I would have been fine with The Thin Red Line as well

Thin Red Line was not a well made anti-war war movie, it was an attempt to upend all the Hollywood tropes of war movies.  It was self referential and unwatchable.  Like all those 1970s New Cinema (not sure if that's the right term) movies that were crap.

New Hollywood?

[Admiral Yi]

New Hollywood?

That's the ticket.

[The Brain]

Thin Red Line (or what little of it I had the strength to watch) was horrible. Sure war is hell, but much like the Mario platform stuff in Doom Eternal this was the wrong kind of hell.

[The Brain]

Shakespeare in Love is great.