'Not Fade Away'
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
How does uberrealism negate real realism?
I probably phrased that wrong -- the vibe I get from the show is that it's really really trying to be realistic. And the "trying too hard" vibe, for me, gets in the way of the show's actually being realistic. I found it too self-aware to be successful.
That is what I think about Six Feet Under. Not that I didn't enjoy the season-worth I watched...they're all great actors and everything, but sometimes it felt like "Wow, aren't we deep? Making so much of this glass breaking on the kitchen floor." or whatever.And I wish Mama Fisher could have met a Hecubus and gotten a haircut from this decade.
Am I wrong in thinking 2005 had a bumper crop of good-to-great movies? One metric I am thinking of that shows just how much better this year's slate was is possible Oscar nominees. Most years I can't be bothered to care, but this year it seems like there might be about two dozen movies that would be satisfying oscar wins for something or another. A partial list of 2005 movies that might be pretty good, even if I think they're overrated or haven't seen it:
Brokeback
Junebug
Broken Flowers
Good Night and Good Luck
capote
Kong
Match Point
The Constant Gardener
Syriana
Munich
The Squid and the Whale
Wallace and Gromit
Narnia, Pass the Chronic(what)les of
A History of Violence
Serenity
Me and You and Everyone We Know
Grizzly Man
Kung Fu Hustle
Walk the Line
Upside of Anger
Aristocrats
Am I wrong in thinking 2005 had a bumper crop of good-to-great movies?
Most year end lists have noted it was a good year to be a movie fan. And usually they're desultory.
Grizzly Man
Already passed over for Oscar consideration, much to my dismay. (Not that it ever had a chance at beating the penguins anyway, but still.)
What amazes me is how many of bon bon's list I have seen -- 6. Last year, I skipped the Oscars entirely, because I hadn't seen anything that was nominated.
I'm not sure that it's really been a year of Quality, so much as a year where all the blockbusters happened to be crap, so the smaller movies are the only candidates for awards. Usually there is some Saving Private Ryan or some other big feely movie that is considered good (if not by me) and is widely-seen enough to basically become a shoo-in for all the bigger prizes.
I don't agree, Nutty. I think that movie is Brokeback, Narnia or King Kong.
There isn't one obvious Oscar-Blockbuster though, it's true.
I can't see Narnia or Kong winning anything but tech awards, especially after last year's LotR sweep.
I have only seen one of those (Brokeback), and it's not that big a release, is it? I mean, it is playing at the Harvard Theatre, which is usually a sign that it does not have Art House Wait For DVD tattooed on its forehead, but it's not playing on 2500 screens either.
I guess King Kong did have some good reviews, didn't it? I just have exactly zero interest in its subject matter.
I don't think Oscar voters will vote in a children's movie as best picture, whatever its pedigree. Even LOTR, which was often called adolescent fodder, had actual adults as its main characters, which is not the case for Narnia.