Big Magilla wrote:I don't know why audiences loved Top Gun: Maverick so much
I never liked Top Gun and have never been a fan of Tom Cruise. However, personally I loved Maverick. Certainly not for its plot which was the usual glorification of the United States by way of the Air Force. I liked how Cruise (finally looking mature minus that perky boyish persona) was paired with an equally mature (and sexy) Jennifer Connelly on screen. It was their incredible chemistry that had me glued to the screen.
But I don't think the film itself (or Tom Cruise) deserve Oscar nods. Down the line nods - sound, editing, visual effects, cinematography - it certainly deserves.
Big Magilla wrote:. It was also an "upper" as opposed to a "downer" like The Batman and Elvis, two other box-office successes this year.
I saw The Batman so long ago I practically forget it was a 2022 film. Had NBR designated it the year's best film, I'd have still grumbled -- "It's a comic book, for Christ's sake" -- but, in terms of artistry/imagination/talent, it's leagues ahead of a Big Mac like Maverick.
I don't know why audiences loved Top Gun: Maverick so much, but I think what critics and Hollywood in general liked about it is that the stunt work was real. It wasn't CGI'd to death like most of today's action films. It was also an "upper" as opposed to a "downer" like The Batman and Elvis, two other box-office successes this year.
The nostalgia was more for a well-produced film than for its content which was no more realistic than say Here Comes the Navy or Flirtation Walk, two headscratchers that Warner Bros. managed to get Best Picture nominations for in a slate of 12 nominees that year.
NBR has a long history of giving Best Picture to films that no other major group selects but they have never before given their top award to a box-office phenomenon over either a universally acclaimed film or a midlevel success that they want to shine a light on. Perhaps there just wasn't anything this year that fit their usual criteria
Mister Tee wrote:Oh, to have a Pauline Kael to scream the truth in these people's faces.
Gone are the days (at least in the West) when one could scream the truth in somebody's face. Everyone is just too sensitive and will only see things from their own perspective.
Don't think Maverick will win at the end of the day but will probably get nominated by the Academy which is hell bent on staying relevent with what people expect them to do in today's often ridiculous atmosphere.
My computer is in dry dock, so I've been unable to comment on this dispiriting group till now. I'll deal with the elephant in the room in a moment, but, first, to the overall list:
3 sequels in a Top 11 list tells you how moribund the year was for mainstream cinema. Apart from TAR (too arty for a group like this) and Elvis (mysteriously omitted despite its WB logo), there's nothing obvious left out...the year just sucked wind. Something's going to win best picture in the same way someone in every family has to be viewed as best-looking: it doesn't mean anything in a better world.
Colin Farrell is, so far, the best actor choice of everyone but the bloggers, who cling tightly to Fraser.
There are legit candidates for supporting actress -- Condon, the Women Talking duo, Curtis or Hsu from Everything Everywhere -- but, so far, our traditional groups are citing trivial entries that, from what I'm told, have lead-actress-size roles. Puzzling.
I'm really -- in a dark way -- looking forward to the Oscar nominees for adapted screenplay this year. The pitiful slate that James Ivory so easily trounced might look strong by comparison.
I keep seeing Aftersun show up on lists, and it furthers my feeling that Paul Mescal is going to get his first best actor nod this year.
Okay, to the madness:
I'm really embarrassed for anyone who thinks Maverick would make anything but an appalling best picture nominee, let alone winner. It's a completely by-the-numbers re-massage of already hackneyed, totally synthetic material. I'm with okri: it's no different from the Spider Man push last year -- people blinded by dollar signs, desperate to find some connection to the audience that willingly swallows such crud. Are people claiming with a straight face that, because nobody wears Spandex, that this is a movie for grown-ups? That this is a movie about real people? That would be a matter of, to paraphrase the late Senator Moynihan, defining "real" several notches downward. This movie is utterly comouter-generated, untouched by human hands. CODA was a godawful choice a year ago -- I'd say, the first movie to win under the preferential system that wouldn't have even been nominated in a field of 5 -- but, saints protect us, is a more defensible choice than the execrable Maverick. That some critics are actually on-board with this scares me even more. Oh, to have a Pauline Kael to scream the truth in these people's faces.
Put it this way: if this is the movie that saved movies, we're deeper into the funeral than even I imagined.
Eenusch wrote:The Best Picture Oscar race is over - Top Gun Maverick wins hands down.
AMPAS is scared shitless about its slide into irrelevance and a big-tent, crowd-pleasing blockbuster with a touch of quality prestige is made to solve all problems.
I've never been more sure of Best Picture winner this early in years - IT IS DONE.
So if this is the route the Academy might take then they may as well anoint Tom Cruise as well. After all his other action films - MI - won't win him the Oscar. Why wait 30 years before handing him an Honorary Oscar. Just give him one for Maverick.
Top Gun winning Best Picture is obviously possible (plus it'll give Cruise his Oscar as one of the producers). I was thinking that it would wind up being this years Mad Max Fury Road, but I reckon the new Avatar will take that honour. I think the only Oscar Top Gun has a chance of winning is Original Song, just like the first one.
Also, this is only the National Board of Review. If it wins the National Society of Film Critics best film, then maybe its chances should be considered. Until then it's not winning Picture.
Eenusch wrote:The Best Picture Oscar race is over - Top Gun Maverick wins hands down.
AMPAS is scared shitless about its slide into irrelevance and a big-tent, crowd-pleasing blockbuster with a touch of quality prestige is made to solve all problems.
I've never been more sure of Best Picture winner this early in years - IT IS DONE.
So if this is the route the Academy might take then they may as well anoint Tom Cruise as well. After all his other action films - MI - won't win him the Oscar. Why wait 30 years before handing him an Honorary Oscar. Just give him one for Maverick.
Not to mention the fact that National Board of Review may have damned Top Gun: Maverick by picking it Best Picture. Green Book was their first carry over to the Oscars since Slumdog Millionaire in 2008. The year before they also picked No Country for Old Men. Before that, you go back to American Beauty and before that Forrest Gump and then Schindler's List and Dances with Wolves.
Nearly every time they've forecast Best Picture, it's been against a backdrop of sweepers. Dances with Wolves, which predates most of the precursors, is probably the last film they predicted that wasn't anointed by the precursors.
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Avatar: The Way of the Water are more likely to win than Top Gun. Remember when La La Land was destined to win Best Picture?
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
The Best Picture Oscar race is over - Top Gun Maverick wins hands down.
AMPAS is scared shitless about its slide into irrelevance and a big-tent, crowd-pleasing blockbuster with a touch of quality prestige is made to solve all problems.
I've never been more sure of Best Picture winner this early in years - IT IS DONE.
Okri wrote:I guess I just don't get how it saved movies, exactly. From an industry perspective, I mean. That's what's puzzled me about the narrative. I don't get what lessons the industry is going to take from it. I don't get why they would be more grateful to Top Gun: Maverick than they would be to the last Spider-Man movie. Unless it's just - phew, only 3 out of the top 10 highest grossing films are Disney films (compared to 7 in 2019). Which.... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I think the story with Top Gun: Maverick is that it lured OLDER audiences back to the movie theaters, not just the MCU fan boys.
I guess I just don't get how it saved movies, exactly. From an industry perspective, I mean. That's what's puzzled me about the narrative. I don't get what lessons the industry is going to take from it. I don't get why they would be more grateful to Top Gun: Maverick than they would be to the last Spider-Man movie. Unless it's just - phew, only 3 out of the top 10 highest grossing films are Disney films (compared to 7 in 2019). Which.... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Anyone who says Top Gun: Maverick is anti-woke is ignorant. As I've pointed out before, the original was almost entirely white and male. This new one has a large number of female and Black and Hispanic characters. It's about as woke as any other movie.
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
