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| Syd |
 Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2019 8:40 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12890
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| How to Train Your Dragon 3: The Hidden World continues the fine work in this series and brings it to a logical conclusion. Very nice coda, too. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2019 10:36 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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| As far as I can tell, it's not being shown live on TV in China. Pretty surprising, as this used to be a Big Deal here. Was standard to have the Oscars live on one of the national CCTV channels. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2019 11:25 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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| Oscars for "Green Book" and Olivia Colman were surprises. This was the year of some of the worst reviewed movies getting some of the top honors. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2019 12:06 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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Green Book a surprise, but it is very much an Oscar type film.
I wasn't planning to see it.
Was also going to skip The Favorite. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2019 12:58 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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| Was Stanley Donen included in the obits? I was catching up with email and didn't realize the list was running until it was half over. (Donen was from my home town, Columbia, SC--I met his uncle, who lived at the hotel where my mother was sales manager in the '60s.) |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2019 1:44 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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| Stanley Donen was not included. He will probably make the list next year. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2019 2:17 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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| Thanks--I figured his death might be too recent to be added so quickly. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2019 11:16 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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carrobin wrote: Thanks--I figured his death might be too recent to be added so quickly.
Carol Channing was also missing from the In Memoriam sequence. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Fri Mar 01, 2019 2:10 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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Bohemian Rhapsody was okay. But seemed entirely insight-free. I'm not even sure why the band chose the name Queen, although it was briefly addressed. The only thing I really liked was Freddie's family. They didn't have much to do, but they did keep coming back to them, and the casting was good.
Mostly the film was fine if not overly engaging. But then towards the end there were a number of cheesy moments. And my suspicion is this was a band approved version of a Freddie Mercury/Queen biopic. The band members are largely in the background, but we also don't learn one negative thing about any of them. I guess they handled fame and fortune with dignity and grace, and only Freddie failed the transition . . . |
Last edited by gromit on Sat Mar 02, 2019 2:45 am; edited 1 time in total
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Fri Mar 01, 2019 4:01 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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| I still do not warm to Rami Malik playing Freddie Mercury. I’d much rather watch the real guy on YouTube. |
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Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Fri Mar 01, 2019 9:52 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12890
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Befade wrote: I still do not warm to Rami Malik playing Freddie Mercury. I’d much rather watch the real guy on YouTube.
It's not like they could cast the real guy. They would have failed with you whoever they cast.
Though I'm still not particularly interested in the film. I'll probably watch it on Netflix some day.
It's odd that I feel disappointed that "Green Book" won, because I really enjoyed the film. I probably would have felt that way whoever won. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2019 2:44 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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Befade wrote: I still do not warm to Rami Malik playing Freddie Mercury. I’d much rather watch the real guy on YouTube.
I thought Malik did a solid job. I think the script let hm down. I kept wondering, what i learned about Freddie Mercury, who was he, what was he like? And I never got much of an answer. I'm glad they used FReddie Mercury's real singing voice instead of have the actor sing Queen.
Some of the costumes were terrific. But the teeth were distracting, even if accurate. Should have toned that down.
I also thought I should go to youtube and check out the real deal. There was a film I saw a few months back where I preferred the youtube vids to the film about the life of a star, but I'm blanking on who that was for. That was the first time that happened to me. Seems an issue going forward for biopics. And a film should be devised so the youtube real vids can be supplementary |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2019 6:11 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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The farther I get from my viewing of Bohemian Rhapsody, the more I realize I disliked it. And I wasn't crazy about Malik either. I think he's a remarkably charmless actor--skilled for sure, but lacking in genuine charisma.
I too enjoyed Green Book rather immensely, but would never have chosen it as Best Picture. It was my fourth favorite of the eight. It was well-produced, brilliantly-acted cheese. Roma was by several light years the best of the nominees, followed by BlacKkKlansman and A Star is Born. The other four nominees ranged from very uneven (Vice) to poor (BR) to almost unwatchable (The Favourite) to not-yet-seen but quite obviously not-gonna-be-my-choice (Black Panther). |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2019 8:06 am |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12890
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Ghulam wrote: Oscars for "Green Book" and Olivia Colman were surprises. This was the year of some of the worst reviewed movies getting some of the top honors.
I figured the Oscar for Best Actress was between Lady Gaga and Olivia Colman (Lady Gaga following in the tradition of Cher and Streisand, which didn't happen), so I wasn't surprised. Green Book was a bit of surprise because it wasn't nominated for Director. Of course, neither was Driving Miss Daisy, which it resembles a lot. I do realize I'm equating Jessica Tandy and Mahershala Ali.
For some reason I'm disappointed Green Book won although I liked it and had no favorire. It wasn't as extreme as when Argo was my best picture of the year and I was rooting for Lincoln (because I thought it won because Ben Affleck was snubbed in the Director nominations, which didn't seem to be a factor this time, or when Driving Miss Daisy won).
In my ideal world, Ali would have won Best Actor and Adam Driver supporting. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2019 8:12 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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Watched Green Book last night and it's a very accomplished film. If I had seen it earlier, i would have been sure it would win the Oscar. Roma had 3 strikes against it. It was a non-English film; there's another award for foreign films, and it was <gasp> a Netflix film.
It's funny how everybody seems focused on how the black experience during segregation is filtered through a white character/perspective. I can understand that -- and I've long derided African films that have done the same, Biko being probably the most egregious. But no one seems to talk about how the black character is the intellectual, cultural and moral superior in the film, who teaches and trains up the lower-middle-class white guy. I thought that was a noteworthy twist which I didn't expect going in. And very much against the grain of most films about blacks in pre-civil rights days or even often much later.
I thought it was quite a good film. Very polished, good dialogue, satisfying scenes. Yeah, it's rather a feel-good story and makes it seem like race relations are on the upswing and might just work out fine given a little time and integration . . . |
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