Director's Guild winners

Uri
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Post by Uri »

So I guess you didn't like The King's Speech, Sabin, ah?

You're too emotionally invested in this piece of dismissible mediocrity. Not good for your health, I'm afraid.

p.s. You're so right about the art direction here. Not only is it unappealing, it's also not very intelligently done – art deco wallpaper in a middle class apartment were supposed to be brand new back in '34, and not look as they've been hung there for 75 years, for God's sake.




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Post by Sabin »

Having recovered...

Rather than simply saying "...wow.", I'm scanning down the list of Director's Guild of America Award winners and I'd like to explain why I think that Tom Hoo/pper is the worst director to win this award since, oh, let's say, Kevin Costner for Dances with Wolves. There are myriad winners that I feel don't do anything exceptional and certainly don't deserve an award for directing because their films are so average in execution, like Ron Howard and Anthony Minghella. And there are some winners who produce films that largely ignore the emotional content of their material and myopically emphasize style over substance like Danny Boyle and Rob Marshall. And then there are directors whose films just aren't that great but certainly were elevated to some capacity by work visible on the screen like, well, half the winners up there. To be fair, Kevin Costner's win is an injustice simply because it's such a ploddingly boring film. He doesn't do anything wrong-headed but rather wrong-headedly allows it to continue indulgently like the vanity project that it is.

Say whatever you will about David Fincher and The Social Network, but here's (AGAIN!) where Tom Hoo/pper fails - FUCKING FAILS - as a director. In most of the conversation scenes in The King's Speech, he delegates Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush to the bottom-most corners of the screen, one right and one left, and as the conversation continues, they find a middle ground. In theory, this is a good idea. Common ground realized visually. In practice, this is ruinous because he also wants to emphasize the poverty of the environs, so we are looking at shots of mostly negative space, ugly wall-paper, categorically not dynamic imagery. The other problem is that all the punch is dialogue-driven, and the shots are so ugly that there is no choice but to cut on every line. Colin Firth finishes a line - CUT! - Geoffrey Rush finishes a line - CUT!...it's arrhythmic! It's uncinematic! It's basically Kevin Smith filmmaking! I will repeat this: Kevin Smith could have directed this film! There is nothing stylistically in The King's Speech that Kevin Smith has not demonstrated visually in his oeuvre. The difference between the two is that because Tom Hoo/pper doesn't write his own scripts, he's more adept at directing actors, or rather actor. The film has a great performance by Colin Firth, which to be fair is substantially better than the usual Kevin Smith performance. The King's Speech is a reasonably well-acted film, which is to say that Hoo/pper is conscientious of Colin Firth who is very good, Geoffrey Rush who is very average, and Helena Bonham Carter who is barely there. Everyone else fades into the background, which is interesting because the background performers in The King's Speech aren't capable of licking the shoes of the background performers in The Social Network. So, it's not like Tom Hoo/pper can claim to be some great actor's director either.

Basically, you've got a director who has visual ideas, which Kevin Smith does not have. In this case, they're visually ruinous, but it's not as bad as watching a Kevin Smith movie. He's better with actors, or capable of directing one great performance in a film. So, yeah, he's better than Kevin Smith. I'll give you that. Tom Hoo/pper > Kevin Smith. We can all agree on that, right?

This is John McCain cinema. Actually, that's not even fair. It's Fred Thompson cinema. That's how much afterthought this movie is. It's already forgotten. It's irrelevant. It's unpleasant. It's a menopausal roundelay of mahjongg. It's Olive Garden moviemaking. I want to emphasize that I do not love The Social Network. I like it. It's a good movie that should have been a great movie, but where I lose the populace is in the realm of the following:

1) It's not like The King's Speech has a stronger emotional heart than The Social Network. While the former may not concern itself with these matters, The King's Speech is phony in its emphasis on Bertie's speech impediment. What is this therapy really? When does it begin? Where does it end? It's afterthought. It's plot device undeveloped. The speech therapy in The King's Speech is like in Arrested Development when Tobias goes to "try out" the spa day he buys for his wife Lindsey and essentially uses it. "I'll take it." "You just did." Nonsense! Pandering! Lip service!

2) While The Social Network may not really be "about" facebook, it's not like The King's Speech is really "about" the historical events surrounding Bertie's rise to power. The parallels between his inability to speak and Nazism are woefully underdeveloped, border-lining irresponsibly absent. The Social Network is about a lot of side notions that engage Aaron Sorkin but The King's Speech is a wasteland of ideas and about as political as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, resulting in a death of forward momentum. Had we truly felt like the fate of the world was at hand sooner than the last five minutes, I might be on board. It might have served under that great subsection of cinema where war is inevitable and all are awash in a beautiful fatalism. But no.

3) I already spoke of both as an actor's film.

I was predicting The King's Speech win a few days ago but I'm convinced of it now, and what's more frustrating than that is that the Director's Guild could be so taken in. By what? Slumdog Millionaire and Chicago aren't incredibly successful music videos, but I understand. There was a zeitgeist quality to several winners like Steven Spielberg, Robert Zemekis, and Sam Mendes. But Tom Hoo/pper? Has there been a more forgettable, average director to win since Barry Levinson? Since Sydney Pollack? Since Richard Attenborough? Actually, no. You knew them. I'm still unsure if it's Hopper or Hooper? Does it matter? If his name were Tom Hooper, would it change a single thing? It wouldn't. He's John Madden incarnate. Nicolas Cage waits in the wings with a shitty accent and a mandolin!

The worst nominated cinematography in decades! Functional editing in defiance of god! Ugly walls awash in an emptiness that consumes the screen like the TGI Friday's dinner ravaged by the film's middle-aged patrons after credits.

Best Director - Tom Hoo/pper.




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Post by Uri »

anonymous wrote:
Uri wrote:Yet the list of the Oscar winners for best director over the pat decade contained only celebrated artists with a proven track record – it doesn't mean they all deserved their win, certainly quite a few didn't win for their career zenith, but like them or despise them, each and every one (or ones) of them had an established group of admirers. In the cases of director/picture split, it was when the best picture was directed by a relative novice – Polanski over Marshal, Lee over Hagis. I guess Fincher still has the edge here. Or, more reasonably, I'm projecting my personal preferences here. I must be the first person to do so here. Sorry.
Sam Mendes won for his first big-screen feature film. Tom Hooper may be a novice when it comes to BIG screen efforts but his miniseries and made-for-TV movies have been winning Emmys and TV BAFTA's for quite sometime now. He's more established than you think.

But I still agree with your assessment.
Mendes is so last millennium.
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Post by anonymous1980 »

Uri wrote:Yet the list of the Oscar winners for best director over the pat decade contained only celebrated artists with a proven track record – it doesn't mean they all deserved their win, certainly quite a few didn't win for their career zenith, but like them or despise them, each and every one (or ones) of them had an established group of admirers. In the cases of director/picture split, it was when the best picture was directed by a relative novice – Polanski over Marshal, Lee over Hagis. I guess Fincher still has the edge here. Or, more reasonably, I'm projecting my personal preferences here. I must be the first person to do so here. Sorry.
Sam Mendes won for his first big-screen feature film. Tom Hooper may be a novice when it comes to BIG screen efforts but his miniseries and made-for-TV movies have been winning Emmys and TV BAFTA's for quite sometime now. He's more established than you think.

But I still agree with your assessment.
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Post by Sabin »

...wow.
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Uri
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Post by Uri »

Yet the list of the Oscar winners for best director over the pat decade contained only celebrated artists with a proven track record – it doesn't mean they all deserved their win, certainly quite a few didn't win for their career zenith, but like them or despise them, each and every one (or ones) of them had an established group of admirers. In the cases of director/picture split, it was when the best picture was directed by a relative novice – Polanski over Marshal, Lee over Hagis. I guess Fincher still has the edge here. Or, more reasonably, I'm projecting my personal preferences here. I must be the first person to do so here. Sorry.
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Post by anonymous1980 »

MovieWes wrote:But it's Tom Hooper. I've never even heard of him until this year.
He has won an Emmy for his Elizabeth I miniseries and also did the John Adams miniseries for HBO.
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Post by Damien »

Big Magilla wrote:I refuse to believe this is 1933 and Cavalcade is going win Oscars for Best Picture and Director.

First the PGA, now the DGA. It's a revolt against modernism!
If The Social Network represents "modernism," then modernism is sorely over-rated.
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Post by Damien »

OscarGuy wrote:It probably helps that the membership of the DGA is made up of TV & Film directors
Every year, when some one is unhappy with the DGA award they trot out this factotum -- he'll I've done it myself, But this is wonderful news! (Even if I would have preferred David O/. Russell.)
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Post by Sonic Youth »

Big Magilla wrote:I refuse to believe this is 1933 and Cavalcade is going win Oscars for Best Picture and Director.

First the PGA, now the DGA. It's a revolt against modernism!
Does this mean you'll reconsider Scott Pilgrim?
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Post by Sonic Youth »

MovieWes wrote:But it's Tom Hooper. I've never even heard of him until this year.
But the DGA's have. This is his second nomination.
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Post by Big Magilla »

I refuse to believe this is 1933 and Cavalcade is going win Oscars for Best Picture and Director.

First the PGA, now the DGA. It's a revolt against modernism!
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Post by MovieWes »

But it's Tom Hooper. I've never even heard of him until this year. I still think the Oscar is Fincher's to lose.
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Post by OscarGuy »

I don't know, Wes. DGA has matched Oscar with the best record of any guild. Twice in the '00s not withstanding, it's only happened once in each prior decade ('95, '85, '72, '68, '49/'48)

Maybe this will be the one for the '10s, but who knows...I haven't seen The Social Network yet, but it has to be an infinitely better directed movie than King's Speech which is a triumph of acting and emotion, but not directing.

Regardless, I'm going to bed.




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Post by MovieWes »

I think Fincher is still going to win Best Director at the Oscars, but yeah... The King's Speech is the frontrunner for Best Picture.
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