This is a post where we will get angry about Mad Max: Fury Road not winning the Best Picture Oscar.
Because come on.
Okay, I’ll take that back to an extent. I have two kids under the age of four so I go to the cinema roughly three times a year if I’m lucky. I think I saw The Martian, Mad Max: Fury Road and Star Wars: The Force Awakens at the cinema this year. That’s it.
TL;DR — I’m in no position to judge anything.
But come on, Mad Max should have won, right?
Let me know your angry, angry thoughts.
Comments
46 responses to “Off Topic: Let’s Talk About The Oscars”
i cant be angry because LEO FINALLY DID IT
Yeah but it feels like he could’ve done it for something better.
I agree. I did enjoy The Revenant, but it is a long, dark and unhappy movie. I personally think he should have won for What’s Eating Gilbert Grape!
This happens fairly frequently. Some awards don’t seem to go to the actor for that performance. Rather, as a kind of weird recognition that they’d previously been robbed, or that their body of work is deserving, instead of an individual performance.
Yeah, and it’s kinda shit that it does happen.
I disagree. I think it was Quint in Ain’t It Cool that said it best, comparing Matt Damon’s performance to Leo’s, stating that Damon made it look too easy, while Leo clearly worked HARD for The Revanent.
It’s deserved… But past nominations may have been more so.
I disagree too. It’s my favourite Leo movie in years and I think his acting and dedication definitely deserved the win.
It’s not about how good you were. But rather whether you were due an Oscars nod or not …
Seriously? You can’t actually believe that, right?
I mean Mad Max was entertaining as all hell, but it pales in comparison to Spotlight. I would have thought the deserved contrarian picks would be Ex Machina and Sicario, neither of which were nominated!
I agree, actually. Both those films were powerful, well constructed, thoughtful stories.
You forget, they dislike SciFi quite a bit at thr academy.
I loved sicario as well, the music made that movie.
They dislike genre films in general, the last genre film to win best film was Return of the King
Nay. People getting worked up about X film they saw losing to Y film they didnt see is a thing that will dominate oscar winners every year forever and ever.
Spotlight was a very good movie, and was a worthy winner.
Mad Max was never going to win best picture. Sorry folk, but given the make up of the academy and the competition it wasn’t happening. The fact that it got five out of six tech oscars and the editing one should be consolation enough.
And I’m glad it wasn’t a Revenant-sweep.
Revenant was pretty great though!
I didn’t really like it. Too much of a slog, and I didn’t feel anything for it upon leaving the cinema other than “ok then.”
Technically it was excellent, the central performances were great, but storywise I didn’t feel it was doing anything great. Could have done with a bit of a trim too.
Feel the same, highlight for me was the cinematography, thought that was amazing.
Oh yeah, absolutely, some very clever stuff and all in natural light. Cinematography category is usually very competitive
Fair enough, but… it was a character film more than a plot driven film, and story can be both so, saying it had a bland story isn’t entirely fair. For me, I absolutely love films that can be based around character moments and building rather than drive it all by plot, so this was a treasure to watch!
Best picture, probably not. Best director though? Fury Road is an impeccably crafted film. The fact that there’s so much going on in every shot but it’s always coherent, for example. I wish all the other action directors would stop and take a moment to look at the way Miller shot that film and stop their shakycam nonsense.
Oh, of course it was well directed, that’s why it was nominated. A lot of that coherency came from the edit, which is why it won in that category.
No, it came from the actual shots themselves – the fact that the center of the screen is always where the thing it wants you to see is happening. The editing just helped.
This is nothing new though. Look at the works of Edgar Wright, Matthew Vaughn, Guillermo del Toro and (action wise) basically anything Brad Allan has worked on. It’s the same principle.
That kind of thing is always hard to pin though. Could be just as much the cinematographer’s hand in that as it could be George’s. Too hard to know without being on set. Could also be the editors hand without knowing how the whole takes look, in that she is able to craft it all around the moments that frame the best. Same can be said for any element of directing though I guess, so *shrugs*. I know first hand for instance that the director of The Imitation Game was useless and a lot of the work was handled by other people on set, yet he was nominated for best director. The way it is, I guess.
Same could be said about Inarritu’s direction though really, his films have always had a very unique treatment, and many director’s could learn a lot from him.
Agreed. Inarritu is one of the most exciting modern directors. He has boldness of vision, and the chops to pull it off. Add in Oscar and critical success and hopefully Hollywood just keep bankrolling him to make whatever the hell he wants. I can’t wait to see what he does next.
I thoroughly enjoyed Spotlight. The Revenant was a brilliant piece of cinema. Mad Max was fun as hell (despite the SERIOUSLY boring part in the middle) and it looked amazing. Ex Machina was genius and subtle and had some epic VFX. I want them all to win and be happy and none of them are better than the others.
Was so glad to see the really genius subtlety of Ex Machina’s vfx get recognised!
I liked Ex Machina, but I wouldn’t describe it as ‘subtle’…
I don’t actually have any idea what went down at the awards, outside of coming across mentions of Leo being up for the big one/having won. Could hardly even tell you what movies I saw this year, especially without having read Marks post and being reminded that The Martian was a thing.
I hope it got things.
The Martian was the big loser, didn’t win a single statue.
Lame.
Didn’t really get too worked up this year since I didn’t think there were a whole heap of great options to choose from anyway. There were some good movies, but nothing I’d really consider as really great.
Best picture of the year for me was probably Inside Out which didn’t get a nomination for best picture, but at least won the animation category.
I haven’t seen any of the films up for Best Picture.
After hearing so many people rant and rave about Fury Road, I was super-excited to watch it a couple of months ago, and I was completely underwhelmed. Visually incredible, and it certainly gets points for being different, but that story could have been told in 5 minutes. I was completely bored by the half-way point. I didn’t care about any of the characters or what happened to them. I can fully appreciate people saying that the film is a technical marvel, but best picture? No.
Sad that Sly didn’t get the best supporting actor 🙁 also the soundtrack for Creed was great so I was surprised that it didn’t get nominated.
I didn’t think Sly deserved a nomination at all. He was fine in the film, but nothing Oscar worthy.
I haven’t seen The Revenant yet, but I’m stoked that Leo finally won. I’ve heard his performance isn’t as good as some of his past work, but IMO he deserved to win for Gilbert Grape and even The Departed.
Mad Max was always a long shot to win. I haven’t seen Spotlight, but it sounds like a great film. Plus it deals with a real social issue and deep themes and such. Something that the Academy would pick over an action film any day of the week.
I’m not surprised Mad Max didn’t win. It was a technical marvel and perhaps a masterclass in how to make a movie, something people should look to if they ever have an inclination to pick up a video camera or mess around with audio or video editing software but as has been stated by many others, it wasn’t the complete package it needed to be to win best picture. Performances and writing didn’t get a mention because they more or less didn’t exist.
Spotlight was a little surprising as best picture winner, but only just, I was in the revenant camp. It was surprising not because I didn’t think it was a good movie but because of the topicality of the movie. The oscars tend to shy away from controversial matters with a few notable recent exceptions (12 years a slave for instance) and spotlight is right up there.
Leo as best actor is a given, not because it was his best performance, there are others I would point to for that, but the competition was weaker this year compared to his other nominated years.
Brie Larson, safest bet this oscars, not much to say there.
Chris Rock, I actually liked. Yes some parts were cringe worthy but that happens. The message was clear, even if we got to the beating a dead horse stage by the end, but the subject matter of lack of diversity in the oscars was addressed in a way that both shone light on and deflated the vitriol that some circles have been throwing the way of Hollywood. And there were some genuine laughs.
Speeches will likely be better handled next year, as I understand it, the idea of having a running list of thank-you’s was implied it would be visible to the crowd present, not just the viewers in front of a television/computer so they felt obligated to still rattle off their list of important people. Stage design was also likely finalised before the idea was implemented and room for some projection of names on site probably wasn’t available.
Best movie I have seen in years was Mad Max. Would loved for it to have swooped in and got Best Picture.
On another note, Chris Rock was hilarious as the presenter of the Oscars. Made 3/4 of the audience extremely uncomfortable.
Love Me Like You Do from 50 Shades of Grey should have won best original song.
Fassbender probably should have won. Or Redmayne. Happy that Leo won, but it wasn’t necessarily deserved with Revenent.
Mad Max is a glorious film for the senses but could have benefited from a better story.
I’m ok with Spotlight winning.
Nothing will ever make up for Interstellar’s Oscar snubs though…
Also Tintin.
And a Pixar movie won best animated film again.. that’s 8 in total now!
Oh god no. In no way did it even deserve to be nominated for best picture. Best visual effects seemed like a sure thing but it won everything but that.
Kudos to all the hard working Aussies, but Furiosa Road… No way. Didn’t even deserve to have max in the title.
I kind of figure it won’t be long before someone makes a ‘jarjar’ edit and cuts him out, and It’ll have minimal impact on the movie.