Bao was only free for a week on YouTube, but you’re right, Kitbull is awesome. I really liked Purl as well, and apparently there was one released in between them—Smash and Grab—which I somehow didn’t realize until looking up links for the other two just now. Haven’t seen it yet.
Me too!!!
The Spark shorts are awesome so far. But yeah, glad I got to see Bao for the week it was up, I guess stay subbed to the Pixar channel to make sure you don’t miss the shorts when they go up.
Am i the only one who thought it was… Super weird that black panther was up for best picture?
Like, it wasn’t even the best comic book movie, much less the best movie.
It’s the only one of the Best Picture nominees that I saw but I thought it was great. From what I’ve heard, seems much more deserving than Bohemian Rhapsody of the nomination. RT agrees - 97% vs 61% (ouch!)
Wow, in fact it has the highest RT % for critics of any of the Best Picture nominees.
I couldn’t watch last night, but of course Green Book won. If there was a less nuanced movie about racism on this year’s slate, that’s what would have won. Imagine being the sort of person who thought Green Book was the best movie of last year that America produced. Sigh.
OTOH, this is the same organization who thought Bohemian Rhapsody belonged on the list at all, so what do we expect.
Olivia Colman and Cuaron winning makes it a little better.
Disney/ABC pushed super-hard for the “Popular Movie” category that got nixed due to the backlash. This was the bone they got.
With Cuaron’s win, that means that Mexican directors have won Best Director almost every year since 2013. Cuaron, Gravity and Roma; Inarittu, Birdman and Revenant; and del Toro for Shape of Water.
Pretty impressive.
People really liked it but yeah, I was surprised when it got the nomination. I was surprised Bohemian Rhapsody did as well as it did. I enjoyed it, but mostly because I knew nothing about Freddie Mercury and Queen other than knowing their hits. I didn’t think it was a great movie.
It’s only weird because the Oscars have traditionally struggled with a disconnect between what’s popular and what’s reviewed well by critics.
They’re trying to address that, but the risk is they alienate the only audience they have left and don’t attract any new viewers.
Look at the 2010s’ Best Picture winners vs. their US box office takes:
2010 - The King’s Speech $138 million
2011 - The Artist $44 million
2012 - Argo $136 million
2013 - 12 Years a Slave $56 million
2014 - Birdman $42 million
2015 - Spotlight $45 million
2016 - Moonlight $28 million
2017 - The Shape of Water $64 million
2018 - Green Book $70 million
So only two are $100 million+ and not much over that.
Note: I’m not saying that box office success means a movie is good, or vice versa. Just that the Academy is struggling to find an audience for their biggest event of the year for a reason.
It’s not that weird. I don’t think it was deserving of Best Picture, and I also think Infinity War was better, but Black Panther had a huge cultural impact and resonance, and it’s not uncommon for the Academy to recognize that.
Remember when Return of the King won about three hundred Oscars, including Best Picture? It was a good movie, but not a great one—probably the weakest of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. But it was a big deal in culture, and a sort of cumulative recognition of the franchise.
Black Panther has that same sort of cumulative appeal—no particular Marvel Studios film is likely ever to warrant serious consideration for best picture on its own, but it wouldn’t feel out of character for the Academy to want to acknowledge the strength of the franchise overall. Adding to that the obvious excitement over the (relatively) groundbreaking minority representation in a major franchise like this, and it’s easy to see why it has the right kind of buzz to get a nomination.
I don’t know if it really was as quid pro quo as Telefrog made it sound with regard to the Academy’s abandoned plans for a popular movie category, but even if that’s exactly what happened, I think it could’ve gotten a best picture nomination without those particular circumstances.
But in this case Black Panther had a great box office AND reviewed incredibly well with critics. 100% with top critics on RT.
I mean, at least Green Book is better than Crash.
I haven’t seen Green Book, but I think Crash is unfairly maligned. It’s not without flaws, but once the backlash started against it, it became cool to hate on it, and so everyone started doing it. It’s become a lazy shorthand for “The Academy often gets things so wrong.” But there’s nothing particularly wrong with Crash; it’s melodramatic and maybe a bit unsubtle, but not awful in the way, say, The Shape of Water is. It’s not like Brokeback Mountain (upset by Crash in 2006) was any more subtle or less melodramatic. Given what I’ve read about Green Book, I will be surprised if I find it a better movie than Crash.
Heh, yeah, every time someone makes fun of Crash, there’s a small voice inside me that says “I liked Crash, but I shouldn’t admit it publicly, apparently”.
EDIT: D’oh. What I meant was: How do dare you Matt_W, Crash was trash!
That is ok, I hated Crash when it came out, and I still hate it now, I guess I “hated on it” before it was cool.
“Pres” weighs in on the Oscars, in particular Spike Lee’s acceptance speech, which he took great offense to. Even though it was probably the most uneven work in the category, I wish Lee won best director last night. The Academy give out career Oscars all the time and this is one of the few times it could’ve mattered. Cuarón’s always amazing, and I loved his empathetic work in Roma, so I have no problem with him picking up the top honors again, but it would’ve been nice to see the 5th African American director ever to receive a nomination finally break through the glass ceiling during this administration.
Green Book would like to thank its biggest supporter.
Free Solo won Best Documentary. It was the 2nd best film I saw last year (after Roma), so that’s something. And it was even directed (in part) by a woman, as were the Best Documentary Short and Best Animated Short winners.
In fact, this is almost certainly the most diverse slate of winners in Oscar history. (Though black Best Director winners are still outnumbered by women winners 1:0.)
Meru is one of my favorite movies the last few years…will have to check out Free Solo.
Crash was not very good, but really it’s mostly that Brokeback and Capote and Hustle & Flow were right there. How the Academy could possibly think Crash was a better film than any of those is beyond me.
Hell, there was even A History of Violence and Cinderella Man and Squid and the Whale and Junebug if you didn’t like any of those. Nope…it’s fucking Crash.