Film Awards Talk - 2018

[Mal]

Technical wins were good. Deakins!
All the big award wins were terrible though.

[Irish]

Well, now it's up to Hollywood to follow through on their ideas and speeches. Say the same thing next year, and it's just rehash.

They already did!

Didn't you see the Black Panther / Lexus commercial? #representationmatters

/s

[Pop Trash]

I was thinking today that The Shape of Water is weirder than the naysayers give it credit for. Beyond even the fish fucking there's a running joke about Michael Shannon's decaying finger and a decapitated cat played for laughs. Classic GDT.

[MadMan]

I wasn't a big fan of I Am Love.

I never saw it.

[MadMan]

I was thinking today that The Shape of Water is weirder than the naysayers give it credit for. Beyond even the fish fucking there's a running joke about Michael Shannon's decaying finger and a decapitated cat played for laughs. Classic GDT.

I recall Shannon telling the general that his pussy finger was still working. Also it featured female masturbation.

[MadMan]

Soooooo... most favorites won. Just like... every other year. I don't know why I expected anything different. I guess I bought into the hype again.

Little disappointed that "Lady Bird" was shut out. I thought it might pick up screenplay, and I was really hoping for Metcalf over Janney.

Not too annoyed about Peele and Del Toro's wins because they're such immensely likable personalities.

Best moments:

- Kumail Nanjiani's shout out to Iowa.
- McDormand's "If I fall over, pick me up because I have something to say."
- Del Toro quickly checking the BP envelope and then turning to grin at the crowd.

I fully agree with this post. I laughed at the Iowa shoutout. Also Deakins winning is great. Long overdue.

[Skitch]

I missed 9.

[Spinal]

I was thinking today that The Shape of Water is weirder than the naysayers give it credit for. Beyond even the fish fucking there's a running joke about Michael Shannon's decaying finger and a decapitated cat played for laughs. Classic GDT.

Seriously. I guess I should see it as a sign of progress when a Guillermo del Toro film wins the Oscar and people bitch about it being the 'safe' choice.

[Spinal]

Best moments:

- Kumail Nanjiani's shout out to Iowa.
- McDormand's "If I fall over, pick me up because I have something to say."
- Del Toro quickly checking the BP envelope and then turning to grin at the crowd.

I also enjoyed Gerwig mouthing the words "I love him!" during Guillermo's second speech.

[Grouchy]

I was thinking today that The Shape of Water is weirder than the naysayers give it credit for. Beyond even the fish fucking there's a running joke about Michael Shannon's decaying finger and a decapitated cat played for laughs. Classic GDT.

I was thinking something similar today. Not even ten years ago, anyone who said this movie would win an Oscar would be laughed at. On this context, it was the most obvious choice despite its quirks.

I imagine the same thing happened throughout history. Midnight Cowboy won in 1969, and that would have seemed impossible during the first half of the '60s.

[Ezee E]

I don't understand how Shape of Water is obvious. I'll give it that it's the most "old-time cinematic" out of the group with at least some diversity attached to it. It's basically sci-fi/fantasy.

"Obvious" is The Post, Dunkirk, or even Lady Bird to try and get it within the times.

The show was incredibly boring for the obvious reason of making change for the future, so I get it. But if we hear similar speeches and thinking next year, it'll just be a joke. I can only hope this is the next "age of Hollywood" and next year goes back to being fun. If I think of it this way, there's a lot of promise of what's to come.

Last change of Hollywood... maybe Sundance and the late 80's bringing Indies to the forefront, with a half-chapter in Spider-Man 2 bringing franchises to the forefront

[Ezee E]

I don't understand how Shape of Water is obvious. I'll give it that it's the most "old-time cinematic" out of the group with at least some diversity attached to it. It's basically sci-fi/fantasy.

"Obvious" is The Post, Dunkirk, or even Lady Bird to try and get it within the times.

The show was incredibly boring for the obvious reason of making change for the future, so I get it. But if we hear similar speeches and thinking next year, it'll just be a joke. I can only hope this is the next "age of Hollywood" and next year goes back to being fun. If I think of it this way, there's a lot of promise of what's to come.

Last change of Hollywood... maybe Sundance and the late 80's bringing Indies to the forefront, with a half-chapter in Spider-Man 2 bringing franchises to the forefront

[Pop Trash]

The show was incredibly boring for the obvious reason of making change for the future, so I get it. But if we hear similar speeches and thinking next year, it'll just be a joke. I can only hope this is the next "age of Hollywood" and next year goes back to being fun. If I think of it this way, there's a lot of promise of what's to come.

Jesus, YES. I find all the back patting super cringey especially since they seemed to conveniently turn the movement into a liberal cultural virtue signalling display rather than dwell on the specifics of mega creeps in Hollywood.

[Dead & Messed Up]

I don't understand how Shape of Water is obvious. I'll give it that it's the most "old-time cinematic" out of the group with at least some diversity attached to it. It's basically sci-fi/fantasy.

I think the big things are (a) it's progressive politics friendly, with the heroic diverse misfits against the evil white man and his government and (b) it's literally built on top of a classic movie theater, and its heroes love old-timey movies, and there's that Top Hat / Follow the Fleet derived musical number, so there's a reverence for Old Hollywood, similar to what you'll find in past Oscar-winners like Cinema Paradiso and The Artist.

[Spinal]

We really need to stop watching our movies through the lens of divisive social media politics. The concerns in The Shape of Water are essentially timeless, not "progressive politics friendly". This is like Colbert saying the truth "has a liberal bias".

[Grouchy]

Eh, the film goes out of its way to have every positive character be a member of a minority group, while the villain is a white male who takes pride on his aggressive masculinity. The progressive message is clearly deliberate by Del Toro and his crew.

[Dead & Messed Up]

We really need to stop watching our movies through the lens of divisive social media politics. The concerns in The Shape of Water are essentially timeless, not "progressive politics friendly". This is like Colbert saying the truth "has a liberal bias".

I'd agree that social identity politics have their limits and can definitely get in the way of discussing other crucial matters to the form (y'know, narrative, filmcraft, editing, etc.) I just assume that was something on the Academy's mind when they went to vote.

At the same time, Del Toro seems to have very deliberately set that movie during the early 1960s to point out that the Norman Rockwellian "good old days" were decidedly less good if you were gay, black, disabled, or a mer-person.

[Ezee E]

Eh, the film goes out of its way to have every positive character be a member of a minority group, while the villain is a white male who takes pride on his aggressive masculinity. The progressive message is clearly deliberate by Del Toro and his crew.

Nitpick: Although Octavia Spencer's husband comes across as abusive, just overpowered by Michael Shannon.

[Grouchy]

Nitpick: Although Octavia Spencer's husband comes across as abusive, just overpowered by Michael Shannon.

What? That's just nonsense. He comes across as not very brave during the intimidation scene and that's it for that character.

[Pop Trash]

Eh, the film goes out of its way to have every positive character be a member of a minority group, while the villain is a white male who takes pride on his aggressive masculinity. The progressive message is clearly deliberate by Del Toro and his crew.

I guess it didn't bother me, because it seems consistent with the times that the cleaning crew might be a mix of black women and women with disabilities. Plus a woman would gravitate towards a gay guy because he isn't married w/ kids (as most straight men past the age of 25 were in those days) and he's a nice guy w/o expecting anything from her sexually (although given her libido, she might not have shot him down). The foster father in Baby Driver bothered me more since he was black, deaf, elderly, AND in a wheelchair for seemingly no purpose other than to make him black, deaf, elderly, AND in a wheelchair.

[Spinal]

When you label this film 'progressive', you sound like Glenn Beck. Honestly.

[Watashi]

You really don't see how The Shape of Water is progressive, Spinal?

[Spinal]

It would make as much sense to say Robin Hood panders to 'progressive values'.

[Grouchy]

Hahahah but I wasn't disparaging the film! I was just saying, there's a definitive intention to read the past (and the Rockwellian imagery like D&MU says) through a present day progressive lens. Del Toro could have been subtler about it, sure, but I'm not using "progressive" as a negative here.

[Spinal]

You really don't see how The Shape of Water is progressive, Spinal?

The argument being made here is that somehow The Shape of Water is a 'safe' choice for Best Picture because it panders to 'progressive' values. This, I suppose, is where we've come to in our culture. Cruelty, power abuse and the oppression of the outsider are seen somehow, not as universally repulsive human instincts, but as one side of a coin that we can either accept or reject based on our political party. I think this is absurd. I think the film uses extraordinarily bold artistic choices (and yes, awareness of contemporary casting preferences) to tell a story that is essentially Beauty and the Beast with a twist. It's not a 'safe' film. It's not a 'pandering' film. It's a film in which a middle-aged woman masturbates in a bathtub within the first 10 minutes.