We’ve seen all of this year’s Best Picture nominees so you don’t have to. Buckle in for an in-depth discussion on NINE best movie of the year candidates, each with accompanying sketchery, as is tradtion. BEWARE: Light spoilers (but mostly only if you haven’t seen Get Out)
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I LIVE FOR THESE! I spent the last few Sundays listening to the previous Oscar eps.
holy crap 2 and a half hours? This really is the Oscars episode of Laser Time! 😉
YES! FINALLY!!!
This it’s seriously my favorite anual LT tradition. I love this show about the oscars far more than the Oscars themselves. This year in particular i felt like they had a really shitty selection for best picture nominees. Where’s the Blade Runner sequel? The Big Sick? I Tonya? Seriously, if “Get Out” doesn’t win best picture, it might go down as one of the worst oscars for me.
Anyway, can’t wait to hear your opinion on the films, and their corresponding sketches!
Laser Time’s Super Bowl! I’m ready!
Sorta on topic – Filmstruck just got a hold of TCM’s library, so now Diana can finally stream “Casablanca” and “Singin in the Rain”.
https://lifehacker.com/watch-over-600-classic-warner-bros-films-on-this-strea-1823356796?
Why would you call out UT in your Ladybird scene? Because US News ranked them #1 in Accounting, #5 overall in Business, and #11 in Engineering (including #2 in Petroleum Eng)? Because it is based in a liberal city like Austin?
Also, fuck you Chris for saying “Fuck Texas.” Eat shit moron
https://betofortexas.com/
Hey man, you can see that chip on your shoulder from space. I’ve lived in Texas 90 percent of my life, and I can safely say: fuck Texas.
I currently live in Russia-endorced Texas, and yeah, fuck Texas.
I was pretty cold on the skits until the one for The Post — that one was hilarious!
My favourite LT episode of the year! As always, love listening to you guys talk about the best picture nominees and this year was no exception. And props to Matty for being the lone person in the group to stand up for Phantom Thread. I went into that movie having no real idea what to expect and being totally blown away by what that movie was. The performances were so g.d. good.
This weekend I saw Three Billboards, and I’m definitely in the group that found it lacking. I’m glad I saw it rather than just assimilate with the Twitter consensus opinion of it being racist (not really the case). I just found it kind of a complete mess, but a fascinating mess. For me the two big issues are that its too cartoonish, and that it tried to be too zeitgeisty. Zeitgeisty in that the promotion led me to believe that this was going to be a movie about racism and sexual violence and police brutality and domestic violence, but rather than offer any sort of commentary on these social issues it just kinda acknowledges that they exist, which was disappointing. Cartoonish in that most of these characters only have two modes, zero and one hundred, with little in-between. That’s an issue when as you guys discuss, these are characters with nuance. I want to believe that, but the only main character with real nuance is Willoughby. Also, I’m usually somebody who can willingly suspend disbelief in a movie, but Three Billboards really pushed that ability. I mean, Mildred is kicking kids in the crotch and NOTHING happens? Dixon beats the advertising kid to a pulp AND throws him out a window and he ONLY gets fired? What small town in America has an advertising office? Why are the accents in this movie all over the place.
Three Billboards was especially disappointing because I think there’s a great movie about grief and guilt if you trim away all the contemporary issues fat. It hit me during the flashback scene that the billboards are more than a tool for justice. They serve as a way for Mildred to put herself through martyrdom, to be constantly confronted by the fact that she’s complicit in her daughter’s undignified death as she has to drive by the billboards on her way home. Dixon do, deals with grief because of the loss of Willoughby who is essentially a father figure to him.
Out of the 9 best picture nominees, I’m only missing The Post and Darkest Hour (surprise, the 2 least exciting movies) but am planning to catch those before Sunday. Out of the 7 I’ve seen so far, I would rank them as follows; Phantom Thread/Lady Bird/Dunkirk>Call Me By Your Name/Get Out>>Shape of Water>>>>Three Billboards. Shape of Water is interesting, I can completely respect the passion del Toro put into it and I know it’s a good movie but it didn’t really do anything for me except make me want to play BioShock. My top 5 of PT, LB, Dunkirk, CMBYN, and Get Out are so close, it’s super tough to rank em.
In terms of who I’m rooting for Sunday, first and foremost I’m hoping for some upheaval in the acting categories. Janney is fine in I, Tonya but Metcalf is so much more deserving. I like Sam Rockwell a lot but this isn’t what he should win for, and Willem is a million times more deserving (also, Florida Project not being a best picture nominee is such an unfair snub). I’d be okay with McDormand winning best actress since she is the glue that holds Three Billboards together but at the same time it would be really cool if Saorise won. And although I haven’t seen Oldman’s performance, I still would much rather DDL get it for a great final performance, or Chalamet or Kaluuya get it for some amazing star-making performances.
For best song, I know that Remember Me will win but I’m still holding out hope that Sufjan pulls off the upset, because it would be so strange to see him win and because it’s a fantastic song! I can at least take consolation in the fact that he’s performing.
For best picture, I’ll handicap it by removing Darkest Hour, The Post, Phantom Thread and CMBYN. Of the remaining 5, I’m rooting against Three Billboards because it just isn’t that good. If any of Dunkirk, Lady Bird or Get Out win I’d be ecstatic and I think they all have a real shot. I think Shape of Water will win it ultimately, and that’s fine with me. It’s a good movie, albeit not an exciting one. It’s such a weird year for the Oscars for that to be the case, where the populist pleasing front runner is a movie with fish sex and female masturbation.
Another great episode.
I’ve seen 6 out of the 9 Oscars film this year, still have yet to see Call Me by your Name, The Post, and Phantom Thread. This year, I don’t have just one or two personal favorites. I absolutely loved Dunkirk, Get Out, Lady Bird, and The Shape of Water. If any one of these films win the best picture, I will be happy as they are all amazing films, one of the best films of last year, and have people behind the camera that I like and support.
Also, I hope Aziz doesn’t mind that I steal his catchphrase but “go f*ck yourself” over La La Land. It was an awesome film, Stone and Gosling gave great performances, it had wonderful music, beautiful cinematography, easily one of the best films of 2016. “Go f*ck yourself” ; )
jesus jumped up christ the post skit is pro. MLG as fuck.
Chris’ impressions somehow sounds like Kevin Uxbridge.
Surprising turn with the slobfest over Phantom Thread. There was criticism lobbed at The Post for being Oscar bait. Anything starring Meryl Streep is guaranteed to justify some of that, but its a movie that’s a self pat on the back than anything else. More or less, Newsoom: The Motion Picture. Phantom Thread was the most Oscar-baitiest type shit I’ve seen since 2011’s The Artist. The slow burn in Call Me By Your Name at least helped set up the summer vacation atmosphere. What else is there to do in the 80’s in the Italian countryside? go swimming, play volleyball with friends, have drinks at the local bar, sexual escapades. All used to make you feel like you are there with them hanging around for a couple months. The slow burn in Phantom Thread was awful by comparison. We understood hes a meticulous eccentric in a single scene in the restaurant with his ridiculous breakfast order. We also know hes good at his job by the mere fact he has a fancy home and workers(servants?) in a post war London. So what the hell took so long to get to unhealthy co-dependent relationships? A film where nothing meaningful happens over a stretch of time is fine if it serves some kind of purpose (see Call Me By Your Name). Also not every scene having a payoff can be fine too (see any Coen Brothers movie). This satisfies enough items from the Academy Award checklist that 15 years ago this would of absolutely won best picture. (1) British Accents. Bonus: takes place in England. Extra Bonus: during 1940’s-1950’s. (2) Daniel Day-Lewis being Daniel Day-Lewis (100% wins best actor and deservedly so). (3) Real life storyline: DDL’s last movie.* (4) Fancy and authentic period costumes. (5) Vague plot threads. (6) An atypical eccentric. (7) Class disparity. Sure it’s missing a few things from the complete Oscar bait checklist (self serving Hollywood circle jerk, race relations, an active war), but its got enough there. I don’t think it will win because they finally got around to including more women and non-white people in the voting process so we won’t see shit like this win best picture much more.
Just found out that Regal Theaters does a “best picture film festival” where they show all of the best picture noms from the time they are announced to the oscars, and it only cost $5 each to see them, or you can pay $35 and see all of them at your leisure. I missed out on it this year, but I hope they do it again next year. It’d be neat to see them all in a theater.
I REALLY don’t understand this selective double standard shit where everyone is so cool with Call Me Buy Your Name and yet will jump down some one’s throat whenever they’re accused of anything without evidence…UNLESS it’s someone they like then “we have to wait for more evidence” or “hear them out” like the fuck. I started young but at least it was with girls my own age fucking adults banging teens is gross even when they’re “legal” if a 30 year old woman had a 19 year old GF that’s still kinda creepy and so are other scenarios of that ilk.
IDK I sometimes get irked when there’s noticable agenda and doubled standard in what’s considered “art” vs what’s “trashy” (I’ve lived life on what gets called the “trashy” end of things more often than not thus take issue with what i belive but understand those who disagree) Just feels like if CMBYN took place in New England where I came of age and stared lower middle class people and not “A world I want to vacation in” the reception would be nothing like this.
I’m what I call “legit pansexual”, unlike most people I’ve been with every orientation in my life, so I can only comment from that perspective but I feel like it’s context in the discussion of CMBYN. If this movie had been “30 year old man, 17 year old girl”, it would have gotten what you’re talking about rightly because it would have been seen as disgusting exploitation trash. But because this film came out during a time of people trying to push our species into a more tolerant world, with a large majority of people kicking and screaming at it (and shooting up schools and raping and marching with tiki torches), there is a certain level of… liberal tact involved in discussing “Call Me By Your Name”.
Do I agree that there IS a double-standard involved here? Yeah, that’s obvious. This movie would have been shot into the sun if it had been a hetero story, because in the end the story of CMBYN is exploitive sexual conquest. It’s just wrapped up in a more “indie” feel. It’s no “Lolita”, but I got vibes of that throughout. But I also understand that in these times, it’s a film that hit at the exact zeitgeist. Hopefully in five years from now, people will see through it and have our feelings towards it. It’s an important movie of gay love, but it’s also a pretty… bad representation of it, the same way Blue is the Warmest Color was. It’s not representative of a healthy relationship.
That opening sentence is a little dumb- what I mean is I see dudes constantly say “Oh I’m bi” or “I think that dude’s hot” and they’ve never had sex with another guy- they just want to be a part of that demo-. I wanted to point out that ain’t me is all lol
In regards to Chris’ comment about not being able to replicate a theater experience, my #1 pick for that is Tron Legacy. I saw the film twice in IMAX 3D and between Daft Punk’s score blaring out of those killer “bass heavy but not overdone” speakers and the subtle but effective stereoscopic effect I don’t think I would ever enjoy it at home in 2D out of TV speakers.
And it super bums me out because I really love that movie.
Sigh.
Wait, dang, it was Matt’s comment.
Despite being a raging anti-Semite and WASP Supremacist, if only Richard Nixon knew he would be portrayed by plenty of ethnic White actors, including CAntittites!
So this is weird, but last night I got into a bit of a Twitter argument with @filmcrithulk over 3 Billboards and Get Out. Basically he posted a comment made by an anonymous Academy voter who kinda shit on Get Out. It was a bad take, for sure, but Hulk then ranted about how 3 Billboards was racist bullshit and Get Out was a masterpiece.
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I disagreed with his take (I thought Get Out was “okay” – a clever thriller, but shallow and full of contrived cliches), well, Hulk then proceeded to take me to task in a multi-part twitter rant and basically said I don’t know what I’m talking about, and that Get Out was a perfect movie that was “transcendent” and literally had no plot holes. He then said there was no such thing as a plot hole and liked some column he’d written in 2012 to prove his point (I didn’t read all of it. It was written in ALL CAPS, but basically said you had to ignore bad plot points so the movie can tell it’s story – I’m oversimplifying, obviously).
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When he finally asked me what my examples of plot holes were, I listed them off to the best of my memory, and he never responded. So yeah. I mostly respect him for his obvious passion for movies and for his political takes, but he can really lay on the hyperbole. He often comes across like a 20 year old, first-year film student who just discovered Quinten Tarantino and now wants to tell you how he’s changed the very fabric of cinema.
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BTW – I’m @badbirdkc on Twitter.
Oh, I forgot to mention, while I normally can’t stand Cinema Sins YouTube videos, I did mostly agree with their take on Get Out. But this whole debate about Get Out being Oscar worthy or not is just another example of the “We don’t care about what X thinks, until we do” argument. If the Oscars don’t recognize Get Out, then they are a bunch of out of touch white senile senior citizens who don’t “get it” and are probably racist, so who cares about what “The Establishment” thinks… OR, if the Oscars do recognize Get Out, then they made the right decision and are representing our values and know they are on the right side of history, ’cause this ain’t your daddy’s Oscars!
Though the Oscars surprised very few this year, I personally was glad I got to see Armie Hammer fire a his Hot Dog cannon into a crowd at The Chinese Theater in Hollywood. I missed seeing Call Me By Your Name so I feel like I got the best part of that movie now.
He fires his hot dog cannon in Call Me By Your Name, right?