About 2 years ago I read a biography on Pauline Kael and her life. One of the many memorable things included in the book was that the declining state of cinema in general made her decision to stop reviewing films much easier, along with not having to travel to New York to previews, etc and her declining health.
The standard of reviewing is at an all time low. I used to buy numerous film magazine back in the 1970's & 1980's and they then all started loosing money and stopped publishing. For sometime now I have been left with two - Sight and Sound from the UK and Film Comment from the US.
In the last 2 years or so the standard of writing in Sight and Sound has dropped dramatically. I now only read the odd article than chuck it on the film of mostly unread copies. Film Comment, however, remains an engrossing and at time challenging read. Once these two magazines cease publication, I'll stop reading them because I refuse to go down the digital path. I still don't own a mobile telephone!
As far as the NBR goes they have and always will be a joke, perhaps even more so now. I keep a spreadsheet on the NY, LA & NSFC awards with some interesting statistic on the winners. I've never felt the need to include this mob and these results pretty much explain why.
"I want cement covering every blade of grass in this nation! Don't we taxpayers have a voice anymore?" Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) in John Waters' Desperate Living (1977)
Because how can a supposedly serious film organization give four of its six major prizes to movies like Mad Max, The Martian, and Creed? I've seen only one of these, and I found it even enjoyable - but NOT award-worthy! And I'm not exactly talking about the quality itself - I can't believe that American cinema at its best today is THIS kind of movies, expensive blockbusters. It would mean that it's dead (which is a possibility, of course). In Europe it would be unthinkable. Nobody would take movies like these seriously here, come on.
The fact that some on this board applauded the choice is frankly scary - the anxiousness of following fashions (and money, and success) is stronger than intelligence I'm afraid. Which of course makes me think that maybe it's not American cinema which is dead, but American criticism. When I was little more than a teenager I remember Pauline Kael being desperate for the critics' ecstatic reaction to Dances with Wolves. I wonder what she would say now. I know that THIS group isn't composed of exactly film critics, but they mirror a certain trend which is quite obvious. I usually try not to read reviews from American critics on the net, but when I do, I am shocked by the lack of depth, the infantile enthusiasm, the painfully obvious absence of culture and EVEN of film culture (and if there's an art where the US by now have a rich history of, it's cinema). Maybe in the newspapers and magazine it's different, but I doubt. And American film criticism used to be great - I'm old enough to remember this.
I for one am pleased with the selection of Mad Max. It was a refreshing summer blockbuster. I'll admit it may not be for everyone, but for those who have complained bitterly for years about how movies over-explain everything and that dialogue is abused as a way of explaining situations this is the movie that steps that back. It explains almost everything through visual cues and inferences instead of excessive dialogue.
Anyway, I'm glad they selected it if only to give it some end-year attention. A Best Picture nomination would be fantastic. I wouldn't give it the win. Right now, I'm leaning towards Brooklyn, but I've still a few films to see.
Stallone may not seem like a contender, but if Supporting Actor is as amorphous as some suggest, an early victory for a buzzed about individual tends to become self-fulfilling prophecy.
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
In terms of the performers, I think Matt Damon is approaching lock status (well-liked star headlining blockbuster heading towards best picture nominations in an anemic category? That's why Sandra Bullock won an oscar). I also think Brie Larsen is well positioned.
It's the two supporting performances that are up in the air vis-a-vis oscar attention. Supporting actress is less anemic than people are asserting, in my mind. And I don't think I'll be able to take Stallone seriously at all.
With the constant Spotlight talk we've been hearing so much about, I found these awards to be kind of heartening. I may not love Mad Max: Fury Road or The Martian (which REALLY got the big boost today) but they represent Hollywood taking honest to God chances. They didn't have to go with George Miller and give him all the money in the world. It didn't make its money back but people really loved it. Unlike The Dark Knight, it's an stylistically expressionistic blockbuster, although I guess you could say that Nolan is a very literal-minded stylist. I say sure, why not? And despite being an adaptation of a popular book and being helmed by Ridley Scott, a helmer of countless franchise installments (literally, they add more every day it seems!), The Martian was not a sure thing. It's a geeked out, "Do you even science?" $100 mil-plus optimistic vision of the future. It represents a break from the apocalyptic ruin awaiting us around the corner, but it's also a canny blend of TV and film sensibilities in terms of tone (Best Comedic/Musical Picture lock, I guess) but also in the marriage of Drew Goddard and Ridley Scott who both won. Once in a while, I don't mind a movie with an actual opening weekend get some awards.
I'm skeptical of Mad Max: Fury Road's chances, but The Martian made a big leap today in terms of front-runner legitimacy, a leap that I didn't think it would be possible to make until the Golden Globes. The fact that it racked up the year's second Best Picture award twenty four hours after Spotlight did is a good thing for its chances. Unrelated to today's NBR (well, somewhat), a friend of mine just saw The Revenant last night and said it was all right, nothing great, and some great sequences in search of a better movie. If his take on the film catches on at all, then "the curse of the sure thing we bank on all year" (a la American Hustle) is again realized.
The failures of Sleeping with Other People and Steve Jobs blew my mind and made me dubious about my ability to predict the future. That The Hateful Eight picked up dual awards reheartens my confidence.
I remember thinking Brie Larson had a real chance at winning Best Picture after seeing Room. Room's moment seems a moment ago now that more focus is being paid to Carol, so good for her.
I still haven't seen Creed. Nobody I know seems to think that the Stallone award hype is more than hype. It seems as though the idea of Stallone in the film dovetails into what people like about the movie in its finer details. Best Supporting Actor has been looking more and more barren in terms of heavy front-runner. I was starting to warm up to Paul Dano picking up a wave of critical support that just sweeps him into his first Oscar but it's hard to imagine the Hollywood Foreign Press passing on an opportunity to give Sylvester Stallone his first acting award. It's also hard to see a critic's group or two not doing the same.
This is hilarious and awesome. Mad Max is still pretty firmly ensconced in my top five and I love the left hook. Super intrigued by how well The Martian did.
Well, my two betes noires of the season -- Mad Max and Creed -- scored big today, making this a rather sour start to an awards season about which I was feeling pretty sunny.
I remain hugely skeptical of Mad Max's chances at a Best Picture nomination, and I'm not sure what it would take to make me change my mind. Barring something truly insane -- like the movie doing a Social Network with the critics, or winning the Golden Globe -- I'm going to continue to think it's not the Academy's cup of tea until proven otherwise.
On the other hand, I do think Sylvester Stallone is at least a likely nomination candidate. (I think it's way too early, and that category is too amorphous, to declare anyone the frontrunner yet.) But he at least fits the profile of what Oscar likes -- an actor who's been around a long time having a comeback, in a role where he suffers some physical hardship, in a hit movie. The nomination wouldn't excite ME, but I think it's way more within Oscar's wheelhouse than Mad Max in Best Picture.
I like The Martian, but should it become the Best Picture frontrunner, as some are suggesting, I'm not sure how I'd feel about that. There are plenty of options this year that strike me as far more ambitious and interesting efforts, so for the race to settle on an entertainment would be a little disappointing, even though I think the movie excels quite well on those terms.
I may not have always agreed with the NBR's choices in years past, but until recently they at least seemed to have integrity. As Roger Friedman said last year "They’re looking for big studio winners to purchase lots of tables at their phony-baloney dinner in January... pigeons with fat wallets."
Is everyone just too dumbfounded for extensive reaction? I confess: when I first saw these posted at another site, I wondered if it was someone's joke. This is truly Studio Revenge -- in a year when there seem to be any number of idiosyncratic but solid films from which to choose, some from indies, this list is Mainstream capital M: The Martian AND Bridge of Spies AND Mad Max?
Anonymous is correct, that Sight and Sound likewise inflated Mad Max -- which in a way is a throwback to the early days of auteurism, where programmers, particularly Westerns, were especial favorites. I'm not in Magilla's group -- I don't hate the film -- but I view it as rather undistinguished. Put it this way: The Dark Knight struck me as far more special in its year than this.
Magilla does deserve a couple of hat tips: for thinking they might reduce the list back to 10 including the best film, and that they might ignore female breakthrough altogether.
There are a lot more seemingly-in-it candidates missing from the top ten list than normal: Carol, Joy, The Revenant, Brooklyn (the latter would have been best picture fodder a year ago). Whether this is meaningful in any way will become clearer after NY, and especially after the Boston/LA parley on Sunday.
It'll be an interesting year if it winds up being Mad Max and The Martian going toe-to-toe for the big win.
Maybe I'll need to watch Mad Max again, but it was largely forgettable the first time around. As for The Martian, I reckon it'll likely be the big winner. Though I may return to this post an edit it in a few months.
