I would support that. 50 years from now is kind of an unthinkable metric tbh. At some point in all of my posts, the thought "What does it matter? We're all going to be dead. Forget about democracy, Earth will be uninhabitable" enters my mind. And honestly, I have those thoughts in my head enough.Big Magilla wrote
I'm wondering if 20-30 years isn't a better barometer of changing tastes and more or less permanent ones.
Best Picture 2022
Re: Best Picture 2022
"How's the despair?"
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Big Magilla
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Re: Best Picture 2022
I'm wondering if 20-30 years isn't a better barometer of changing tastes and more or less permanent ones.
I'm probably no more prescient than anyone else but I remember liking The Searchers at 12 or 13 and Vertigo at 14 or 15 in the 1950s but it wasn't the 1970s that both films took hold with the general consensus. Films that were initially praised and rewarded at the time like Oscar winners Around the World in 80 Days and Gigi began to fade at the same time. By the 1980s those opinions were pretty much locked in and have remained so ever since.
The Manchurian Candidate, which I had admired since first seeing it in 1962, was withdrawn after the Kennedy assassination in 1963 and didn't resurface until the late 1980s but has remained popular ever since. That same year's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance was a film I didn't appreciate due the obvious age difference between the main characters and the actors playing them. Although I liked What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? for the performances of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford I thought the film itself was a glorified B-movie. Breakfast at Tiffany's which I loved for Audrey Hepburn, "Moon River", and most everything else, had me cringing at Mickey Rooney's performance just as I had cringed at Marlon Brando's similar take on a Japanese character in Teahouse of the August Moon. The consensus on those films has also come around to my way of thinking but has maybe taken a bit longer.
On the other hand, films that I was pretty much part of the consensus on in the 1970s, have remained the same for me and most everyone else.
Most people then as now agreed with the outcome of the 1972 Oscars while most then as now were perplexed by the outcome of the 1973 Oscars.
Save the Tiger, for which Jack Lemmon won his second Oscar, was torture to sit though. It was for me then what news about Donald Trump and the rest of today's Republic Party is for me now. A Touch of Class, for which Glenda Jackson won her second Oscar, was jaw-droppingly unfunny - Jackson was the touch of class but nothing else about it had any.
People were arguing then as now whether it was right for Tatum O'Neal to have been competing in the supporting actress category for Paper Moon let alone winning over Sylvia Sidney or Linda Blair then, Madeline Kahn in retrospect now. If only Day for Night had been released in L.A. as it had been in New York in 1973, Valentina Cortese would have likely been a comfortable winner over all of them.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, I don't think that either my thinking or that of the general consensus has changed much on any of the major films of the 1980s, 1990s, or early 2000s yet.
I'm probably no more prescient than anyone else but I remember liking The Searchers at 12 or 13 and Vertigo at 14 or 15 in the 1950s but it wasn't the 1970s that both films took hold with the general consensus. Films that were initially praised and rewarded at the time like Oscar winners Around the World in 80 Days and Gigi began to fade at the same time. By the 1980s those opinions were pretty much locked in and have remained so ever since.
The Manchurian Candidate, which I had admired since first seeing it in 1962, was withdrawn after the Kennedy assassination in 1963 and didn't resurface until the late 1980s but has remained popular ever since. That same year's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance was a film I didn't appreciate due the obvious age difference between the main characters and the actors playing them. Although I liked What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? for the performances of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford I thought the film itself was a glorified B-movie. Breakfast at Tiffany's which I loved for Audrey Hepburn, "Moon River", and most everything else, had me cringing at Mickey Rooney's performance just as I had cringed at Marlon Brando's similar take on a Japanese character in Teahouse of the August Moon. The consensus on those films has also come around to my way of thinking but has maybe taken a bit longer.
On the other hand, films that I was pretty much part of the consensus on in the 1970s, have remained the same for me and most everyone else.
Most people then as now agreed with the outcome of the 1972 Oscars while most then as now were perplexed by the outcome of the 1973 Oscars.
Save the Tiger, for which Jack Lemmon won his second Oscar, was torture to sit though. It was for me then what news about Donald Trump and the rest of today's Republic Party is for me now. A Touch of Class, for which Glenda Jackson won her second Oscar, was jaw-droppingly unfunny - Jackson was the touch of class but nothing else about it had any.
People were arguing then as now whether it was right for Tatum O'Neal to have been competing in the supporting actress category for Paper Moon let alone winning over Sylvia Sidney or Linda Blair then, Madeline Kahn in retrospect now. If only Day for Night had been released in L.A. as it had been in New York in 1973, Valentina Cortese would have likely been a comfortable winner over all of them.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, I don't think that either my thinking or that of the general consensus has changed much on any of the major films of the 1980s, 1990s, or early 2000s yet.
Re: Best Picture 2022
Looking back at the Oscar years from around 50 years ago, those lineups have endured pretty well. 1971, Nicholas and Alexandra seems to exist only as a checkmark for Oscar completists, but the others are all still widely available and widely shown today. Even Nicholas and Alexandra will still show up on streaming and TCM, it's just that no one wants to watch the damn thing, or wants to talk about it if they do. I don't know if Fiddler on the Roof is served or hurt by the constant revivals of the stage show, but people know the movie, and The Last Picture Show and A Clockwork Orange are both gateway drugs for budding cinephiles. A Clockwork Orange is especially a favorite of people who want to make their entire personality Stanley Kubrick and "edgy" Criterion collectors. I feel like The French Connection has been blunted by movies that have copied it, but its recent controversy shows that it still gets gets attention. Couldn't guess what the best remembered of this lineup is, because while there isn't a definite choice as there is with the 72 lineup, there are four that are very well well-remembered for mostly different reasons. The Godfather is definitely the movie of the 72 lineup, the one that exists beyond the Oscars with people who don't pay any attention to them, but Deliverance and Cabaret definitely have their own lives too, are definitely still fondly remembered, and even The Emigrants has managed to find a new life once Criterion made it available again a few years back. And Sounder, partially due to being based on a famous book, and partially due to Cicely Tyson's late-life recognition, still gets shown and seen, although like The Emigrants, maybe in a more limited way than the biggest three of this lineup. The lineup after that is another one that has held on pretty well. A Touch of Class is the only one that no one seems to talk about, except with disdain, and a Bergman death film will always be a bit of a niche item, but he will always be a major figure, so it will be seen and talked about as well; American Graffiti, The Sting and The Exorcist are all still pretty popular today. I would guess that The Exorcist is the one that kind of transcends the Oscars the most, and is the one that audiences can watch without any context. I think some viewers may not totally get American Graffiti and The Sting without knowing some context and backstory.
This past year though: Avatar and Top Gun: Maverick have their place as the box-office champs. I don't think either of them will hold up as art, and I think there is a great chance that as the Avatar films face more delays that the first two (or however many get released) come out worse in retrospect for being the beginning of a story that was either never completed or one that got rushed and was never completed the way it should've been. Baz Luhrmann is always going to be a divider rather than a uniter, so Elvis will have as many detractors over time as fans. All Quiet... will have its place as the "what is this movie that won four Oscars?" movie. When we are all dead and gone, people will find its Oscar success as weird as I find, I don't know, How the West Was Won's. Women Talking already seems forgotten.
I think Triangle of Sadness' place in cultural memory is dependent on where Ostlund goes from here. The track record of multiple Palme d'Or winners is, maybe understandably, not great. By that I mean, no one has usually made their greatest work after the second one. Even with Coppola who I think made some great films after Apocalypse Now . But after having researched his career off and on over the past couple of years, and read some books about him, it's clear that Apocalypse Now broke him at least temporarily and was an endpoint for him in many ways.* But Ostlund does have an advantage over Imamura, or Loach, in that he is still young, and unlike the Dardenne Brothers (who were a few years older than Ostlund when they won their second), I don't think he will keep doing the same type of film the way they do. (Don't mean that as a slight on them, who I like a lot, but they make a specific type of film and don't deviate from that very much.) And unlike Kusturica, I don't think he'll dedicate much of his time to carrying water for dictators instead of making movies. Triangle... was already kind of different from Ostlund's last few. So let's see what he does next.
The Banshees of Inisherin is good, well acted, but the first of McDonagh's films that I think could've worked just as well onstage. I almost wonder if it started as a play that he reworked as a screenplay. For a filmmaker who I think has tried to keep his plays and films distinct from each other, I think this one blurred the lines more than any of his others. Even Three Billboards, a much worse film than this, was constructed in such a way that it only could've been a movie. (I think that both movies suffer in that the towns are way too vaguely constructed.) I don't know what that says for its prospects in the long term. It will have its fans, but I think that it's probably optimistic to hope that it becomes any kind of St. Patrick's Day staple. I think it will be hurt by the fact that it's not very distinctive as a piece of filmmaking and that McDonagh will not be seen as one of the great filmmakers of this era. Movies can still survive their makers, but its full shutout on nine nominations makes me question whether this one will.
Seven wins will allow Everything Everywhere its place in the history books no matter what The Daniels do after this. But in the social media age, detractors will have their say, and a movie as particular and eccentric as this will look odd to future generations. Again, where young audiences today may not totally understand why American Graffiti was such a monster hit, this will really be a struggle to understand. Whereas with Tar, on a plot level, there are always going to be monsters in positions of authority. And with The Fabelmans, there are always going to be troubled marriages and things you learn about your parents and things you realize years later that were probably apparent all along. Yes, Banshees is dealing in themes that will resonate years from now as well, but I think Tar will hold up and make a case for itself over the years whatever else Field does or doesn't do partially because Tar does have such a clear authorial voice. But The Fabelmans I think will hold up even more because Spielberg's place in the pantheon is secure and it is, like I said in the director thread, a key piece in his filmography, something that will be used and looked at as some type of Rosetta Stone in his filmography in the way that Liberty Valance (a much less overtly personal film than Fabelmans) is for John Ford, who Spielberg, in fifty years, will be as highly regarded as. I don't know that it's my top movie of 2022 or even my favorite director origin story of 2022 (I rewatched Armageddon Time recently and it still looms large as one of the great films of the year) but it is my personal vote out of this lineup.
* - It was the culmination of gambling the early 70's run on Apocalypse Now which was the disaster that paid off, then gambling it on One From the Heart, which was the disaster that didn't, then stepping in on The Cotton Club, which was Robert Evans' disaster that he got blamed for. (People forget that he directed a hit in The Outsider in that period.) I was researching it for a planned podcast that may never happen, because I wanted to write it all out first, and I've at this point only gotten up to The Conversation, although I've done parts of other films/periods of his career. Last school year I had no time to write...no planning period, and I was just exhausted every day when I got home. I find a line Six Degrees of Separation resonating deeply as I think about this project, especially where I am right now and how scattershot my progress has been over the past months: "I thought... dreamt... remembered... how easy it is for a painter to lose a painting. He paints and paints, works on a canvas for months, and then, one day, he loses it. Loses the structure, loses the sense of it. You lose the painting."
This past year though: Avatar and Top Gun: Maverick have their place as the box-office champs. I don't think either of them will hold up as art, and I think there is a great chance that as the Avatar films face more delays that the first two (or however many get released) come out worse in retrospect for being the beginning of a story that was either never completed or one that got rushed and was never completed the way it should've been. Baz Luhrmann is always going to be a divider rather than a uniter, so Elvis will have as many detractors over time as fans. All Quiet... will have its place as the "what is this movie that won four Oscars?" movie. When we are all dead and gone, people will find its Oscar success as weird as I find, I don't know, How the West Was Won's. Women Talking already seems forgotten.
I think Triangle of Sadness' place in cultural memory is dependent on where Ostlund goes from here. The track record of multiple Palme d'Or winners is, maybe understandably, not great. By that I mean, no one has usually made their greatest work after the second one. Even with Coppola who I think made some great films after Apocalypse Now . But after having researched his career off and on over the past couple of years, and read some books about him, it's clear that Apocalypse Now broke him at least temporarily and was an endpoint for him in many ways.* But Ostlund does have an advantage over Imamura, or Loach, in that he is still young, and unlike the Dardenne Brothers (who were a few years older than Ostlund when they won their second), I don't think he will keep doing the same type of film the way they do. (Don't mean that as a slight on them, who I like a lot, but they make a specific type of film and don't deviate from that very much.) And unlike Kusturica, I don't think he'll dedicate much of his time to carrying water for dictators instead of making movies. Triangle... was already kind of different from Ostlund's last few. So let's see what he does next.
The Banshees of Inisherin is good, well acted, but the first of McDonagh's films that I think could've worked just as well onstage. I almost wonder if it started as a play that he reworked as a screenplay. For a filmmaker who I think has tried to keep his plays and films distinct from each other, I think this one blurred the lines more than any of his others. Even Three Billboards, a much worse film than this, was constructed in such a way that it only could've been a movie. (I think that both movies suffer in that the towns are way too vaguely constructed.) I don't know what that says for its prospects in the long term. It will have its fans, but I think that it's probably optimistic to hope that it becomes any kind of St. Patrick's Day staple. I think it will be hurt by the fact that it's not very distinctive as a piece of filmmaking and that McDonagh will not be seen as one of the great filmmakers of this era. Movies can still survive their makers, but its full shutout on nine nominations makes me question whether this one will.
Seven wins will allow Everything Everywhere its place in the history books no matter what The Daniels do after this. But in the social media age, detractors will have their say, and a movie as particular and eccentric as this will look odd to future generations. Again, where young audiences today may not totally understand why American Graffiti was such a monster hit, this will really be a struggle to understand. Whereas with Tar, on a plot level, there are always going to be monsters in positions of authority. And with The Fabelmans, there are always going to be troubled marriages and things you learn about your parents and things you realize years later that were probably apparent all along. Yes, Banshees is dealing in themes that will resonate years from now as well, but I think Tar will hold up and make a case for itself over the years whatever else Field does or doesn't do partially because Tar does have such a clear authorial voice. But The Fabelmans I think will hold up even more because Spielberg's place in the pantheon is secure and it is, like I said in the director thread, a key piece in his filmography, something that will be used and looked at as some type of Rosetta Stone in his filmography in the way that Liberty Valance (a much less overtly personal film than Fabelmans) is for John Ford, who Spielberg, in fifty years, will be as highly regarded as. I don't know that it's my top movie of 2022 or even my favorite director origin story of 2022 (I rewatched Armageddon Time recently and it still looms large as one of the great films of the year) but it is my personal vote out of this lineup.
* - It was the culmination of gambling the early 70's run on Apocalypse Now which was the disaster that paid off, then gambling it on One From the Heart, which was the disaster that didn't, then stepping in on The Cotton Club, which was Robert Evans' disaster that he got blamed for. (People forget that he directed a hit in The Outsider in that period.) I was researching it for a planned podcast that may never happen, because I wanted to write it all out first, and I've at this point only gotten up to The Conversation, although I've done parts of other films/periods of his career. Last school year I had no time to write...no planning period, and I was just exhausted every day when I got home. I find a line Six Degrees of Separation resonating deeply as I think about this project, especially where I am right now and how scattershot my progress has been over the past months: "I thought... dreamt... remembered... how easy it is for a painter to lose a painting. He paints and paints, works on a canvas for months, and then, one day, he loses it. Loses the structure, loses the sense of it. You lose the painting."
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Big Magilla
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Re: Best Picture 2022
My top three were Tár, The Banshees of Inisherin, and The Fabelmans in that order.
I think all three will be better remembered than Everything Everywhere All at Once over time. While that film will in my opinion be as easily shrugged off as The Greatest Show on Earth is today, my top three will be watched and seen more frequently than EEAAO as High Noon, The Quiet Man, and Singin' in the Rain have been over The Greatest Show on Earth for decades now.
They say that everyone is Irish on St Patrick's Day. It's a long shot, but it's possible that the more sophisticated audiences of tomorrow will watch Banshees every St. Patrick' Day just as their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents have watched The Quiet Man every 17th of March for as far back as they can remember. It's the one that I think will best stand the test of time.
I think all three will be better remembered than Everything Everywhere All at Once over time. While that film will in my opinion be as easily shrugged off as The Greatest Show on Earth is today, my top three will be watched and seen more frequently than EEAAO as High Noon, The Quiet Man, and Singin' in the Rain have been over The Greatest Show on Earth for decades now.
They say that everyone is Irish on St Patrick's Day. It's a long shot, but it's possible that the more sophisticated audiences of tomorrow will watch Banshees every St. Patrick' Day just as their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents have watched The Quiet Man every 17th of March for as far back as they can remember. It's the one that I think will best stand the test of time.
Re: Best Picture 2022
I didn't have a strong favorite film of the year. It was either Tár or Triangle of Sadness. I think Tár is the bigger swing. It gets my vote.
Best remembered fifty years from now? I think The Fabelmans probably has the inside track by virtue of being a late career personal work by an all-time great filmmaker. There's a very real chance that Everything Everywhere All At Once will end up looking very silly. I mean, it already does.
Best remembered fifty years from now? I think The Fabelmans probably has the inside track by virtue of being a late career personal work by an all-time great filmmaker. There's a very real chance that Everything Everywhere All At Once will end up looking very silly. I mean, it already does.
"How's the despair?"
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Big Magilla
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Best Picture 2022
Please vote twice - once for which film you think was the best film of 2022 and once for which film you think will be best remembered in 50 years or so.
Comments greatly appreciated.
Comments greatly appreciated.