What's on your mind... besides Oscar Isaac?
Friday, January 22, 2016 at 10:10AM Look at that cutie. No, not that one. Scroll down -- that doggie is so cute it almost pulls focus from Oscar Isaac, the web's current boyfriend. Apparently he plays a serial killer in his new film Mojave (opening in limited release) this weekend. I'm so over serial killers in movies. According to tv & movies serial killers must make up about 15% of the world's population and the one job market that's always booming is for Trained Assassins. By 2018 we'll all be dead!
This is a long way of saying I'm probably not going to the movies this weekend (January is the one month I take a break aside from rescreenings of Oscar nominees for writing purposes) but maybe you are? The 5th Wave? The Boy? Dirty Grandpa? The Romanian Oscar submission Aferim! (when is Romania going to catch a break with the Oscars?)?
What are your cinematic plans this weekend? What's on your movie mind?
Reader Comments (52)
I'm going to see Remember with Academy Award winners Plummer and Landau. Low expectations.
Still catching up on screeners and TV.
And thinking about privilege. (Good morning, world.)
you know you have to see queen of earth ;)
Right now I'm sad for Charlotte Rampling, a legend being destroyed on social media. If she worked at a corporation, the mob would no doubt be trying to get her fired.
Oh, Miss Rampling (see my last paragraph above). Here's hoping her original comment was somehow lost in translation, because otherwise she just boosted Brie Larson's already superior odds to win Best Actress.
I've got a triple feature of Maps to the Stars (arrived on Netflix), 45 Years, and Son of Saul. Overall, I'm pumped-I'm thinking I'll like all three.
C'mon! Rampling was never going to win. She's European, old and only works in strange little movies.
Nathaniel, do you think Cheryl Boone Isaacs should resign?
Peggy Sue -- i am now officially out of the #OscarsSoWhite debate. It's no use talking about it. You're damned whatever you say whether in support of diversity or in basic statistical analysis of Oscar habits (their voting is increasingly diverse but for this two year stretch in the acting branch). I'm done.
Rampling kind of deserves all the shit she's getting? I can't believe such a gifted artist can be that insensitive!
Peggy Sue, I never said she had any chance to win. There's an entirely different implication in what I wrote.
As always, Jennifer Jones. Jennifer. Jones. Sigh...
Maybe I'll watch Portrait of Jennie for the eighth time. Yeah.
Liberals are the new Fascists. Assisted by hysterical morons on social media. People cannot express an opinion, which goes against received thought, without getting abuse and opprobrium heaped upon them. Charlotte Rampling should stay strong.
On my mind? Todd Haynes, David Bowie, Christian Bale and Nick Davis.
I watched Velvet Goldmine a couple of nights ago, as you do when Haynes misses an Oscar nomination and then Bowie dies, and it filled me with love for Haynes, and for Bale, who is just terrific in it; I'd forgotten my capacity to adore Christian Bale.
Then I read Nick Davis's "favorites" piece on it, and it's one of the best, most inspiring, beautiful tributes to the effects of movies on lives. Read it, everyone.
Obviously, Rampling, Hollywood racism, and category fraud are on my kind, too, but I'd rather focus on the positive. We live in a world where Bowie inspires Haynes inspires Nick Davis.
"Liberals are the new Fascists."
God, I love the Internet.
Rampling will be fine, guys.
I'm not participating much on the debate either, but it's been truly fascinating and gratifying to watch it unfold. I used to be more nitpicky about this subject and it's indeed frustrating for people who talk about the subject year round to see people come out of the woodwork with a considerable lack of nuance, but I think that the discourse, however coarser than we'd like it to be, is going to change the industry for the better. Without this level of outrage, would we have gotten these awesome statements from a former and current president of AMPAS? Sometimes you need a tidal wave to move something this massive a square inch. It's brought this out to the open in a way that not even the most sequestered industry folks can avoid thinking about, and from the looks of statements today from Caine and Rampling, we need that more than anything else right now. It's a start.
Because of America's patriarchal white supremacy it is comprehensible for me to accept causal racist remarks from white males. But coming from Charlotte Rampling is too much to bear.
My movie thought of 22/01/2016
Margot Robbie is going to be the big star of 2016. She's got 3 movies, and the 3 of them look exactly the perfect vehicles to land her a Golden Globe nomination in the 3 female acting cathegories... Lead Actress, Drama in David Yates' "The Legend of Tarzan" (seriously, check out the cast, this movie is aiming high), Lead Actres, Comedy or Musical, "Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot" along Tina Fey a movie by the directors of cult films "Bad Santa" and "I love you, Phillip Morris", and finally looking so gorgeously insane and perfect, in the candiest role of the year, Harley Quinn in "Suicide Squad"... 2nd trailer just came out, and makes clear everybody is going to fall in love with this assasin.
Forecast: Oscar nominee for Suicide Squad. Pending on how greatly raved she is, maybe win. And overshadowing Leto's Joker.
Caroline - that's a positive way of looking at it. I just dread seeing my beloved Oscars change the things that are good about themselves (the consistency of 5 wide categories) in order to fix things that are bad about themselves (their lack of diversity) especially when apart from these past two years for the acting branch statistically they've been doing way better when it comes to diversity as detaild in this post.
Current thought: feels like "Suicide Squad" will inevitably get some terrible modern rock band to do a cover of Steve Miller Band's "The Joker". Anyone want to place your bets? Even odds on 30 Seconds to Mars.
This weekend I am catching up with "Eden" and "Diary of a Teenage Girl", very excited for both.
Speaking of Charlotte Rampling, I just finished Broadchurch (season 2) on Netflix! Now I need something new.
Thank God I don't know this Charlotte Rampling person!
Going to watch Diary of a Teenaged Girl on DVD (somehow missed in theaters) & maybe seeing The Revenant.
Cinematic plans, sorta: I absolutely do not need to see The Force Awakens a fourth time, and it does not deserve a fourth. (Not even a third, really, but it's admittedly been a blast to watch it with different parties of friends and family.) The closing of the Zeigfeld is making me reconsider this, however.
3rtful: when, yesterday, you wished for anti-Semitic remarks to come out of Jennifer Lawrence's mouth, I would never have predicted such swift karmic retribution. You need to make amends fast before Isabelle Huppert says something crazy.
Time for a palate-cleansing post about
Meryl
Streep,
I think.
LOL @ Mike in Canada.
stella - I was planning on the same thing. I really want to go to the Ziegfeld before it closes, and Star Wars is probably the last thing to show there. I can only really make the 3D showings, which I have an aversion to but I have no problem seeing Star Wars again!
Not to defend Charlotte Rampling ( she should've kept her mouth shut on this subject - as Nathaniel says, you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't ) but I don't understand the outrage. You don't like the answer? Maybe you shouldn't have asked in the first place. I bet the reporter actually loved the way the whole thing went.
Also, I think Rampling was talking about racism in a general way ( like boycotting something because of the color of the skin of the participants ) . Not everybody is so current with the problems and nuances of the American society as The Internet is. She's almost 70, she gets her FIRST Oscar nomination (how many does Will Smith have?) and she's asked if she should boycott it. Really. (not that I think she cares that much about it ). In the end, she's getting labeled a racist. Nicely done.
This is your site, and you can choose to engage or disengage to what level you see fit. I understand that completely, as this is your livelihood and passion combined.
Yes, I agree that some of the anger and outrage is misdirected, and that diversifying their ranks was a worthwhile ongoing project that pays off in the long term, not the short term. That said, what people must understand as well is that the Academy is for all intents and purposes the face of Hollywood. The Academy cannot put itself up as an arbiter of Hollywood standards and expect to take just the glory, they have to take the crap that comes along with it too. That comes with the territory. It's part of why I admire Boone-Isaacs more these days, because she accepted that this came with the role and made absolutely no attempt to shift the conversation away from it. Good on her.
The sense I'm getting from you over the Oscars though is 'don't get in the way of my Oscar fun and Oscar tradition by asking for uncomfortable change.' If that's not the case, then I apologize. But that is the impression you've been sending every time you debate, and the refrain has been consistent enough that I'm now second guessing everything that you say, because for the first time ever, I'm getting the impression in this site that the spectacle and tradition of the Oscars itself means more than the injustice that POC see when it comes to representation. And that is just NOT cool.
" In the end, she's getting labeled a racist."
She's getting labeled ignorant (by me, anyway).
Mike in Canada, thanks for bestowing upon me magical powers. If only I knew how to use them for the right target. I am heartbroken over Rampling's remarks. She's a living legend I had reverence for. Now I am discouraged from exploring many titles in her filmography I've never seen. If Isabelle Huppert says anything remotely racist towards black people this year I will never watch foreign language movies again.
You actually ARE defending her. It's not really a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation here. If she'd said something, say, not ignorant, it wouldn't have provoked a reaction. Shouldn't have been asked is not an option.
Rampling's comment "racist against whites" is retrograde, reactionary and just dump, and sadly it mars what was one of the bright spots of this year's slate of nominees. Au revoir, Madame.
Nicely said Adelutza.
I need a break from Hollywood, time to catch up with some "Call the Midwife" and "War & Peace" on the BBC, nothing like a bit of Tolstoy to put things into perspective.
I'm all caught up on the nominees for BP, so maybe some docs over the weekend.
Flickah -- i too respect Cheryl Boone Isaacs for her handling of things. But if these conversations have taught me anything it's that nobody trusts anyone who has any reservations about the controversy because nobody actually wants conversation / measured responses / debate about solutions. They just need to feel what they feel and express frustrations that the solutions haven't already arrived. So i will try to stay silent until that phase is over.
For there is no way for me to respond to your paragraph that doesn't condemn me. Even this response is stupid of me. haha. If I object to your perceptions about my "oscar fun" (and yes the Oscars are fun for me... sue me ) i am being defensive. If I say you've all been riight all along that I should not raise any objections to specifics or the tenor of the condemnation than I lose my ability to speak of possible solutions (outlined in other posts) or nuances that it might help people to understand -- problems cannot be solved through outrage alone.
This isn't a pity party. I'm just trying to map out for you how it feels to be on the end of the condemnation, even though you're actually on the same side as the people doing the condemning. Basically it's sad for me as someone who has spent 15 some years on the web promoting diversity of thought, imagination in voting, and the careers of talented people of all ethnicities and colors to be brushed with this brush. so yeah. that's it from me.
Peace.
Paul Outlaw - I was just paraphrasing Winston Churchill
San FranCinema - Make sure you proofread before you post
^ Haha, yeah, my post sounded a little dump. I mean, dumb.
Oscar Boone Isaacs
God, I love the Internet.
The AMPAS board's unanimous vote is on my cinematic mind now:
http://deadline.com/2016/01/oscars-diversity-academy-vows-to-double-number-of-women-and-diverse-members-by-2020-1201688409/
Still only five acting nominees, don't worry. ;-)
@Nathaniel - I wasn't condemning you, though I see now why it could be interpreted that way certainly. My goal was to tell you how you were beginning to come across, despite your history in this site, which has been very inclusive and diverse.
Perhaps it is best I disengage as well. This is not the first time we've had a diametric position that couldn't be reconciled. For what it's worth, I apologize if I heightened the temperature here. It's been a frustrating few weeks for Oscar and movie lovers.
Flickah -- thank you. I apologize if i was tone deaf a few times -- like many people i work through complicated issues and feelings by talking about them.
Charlotte Rampling will be fine, people. She knows what she is doing and she doesn't give a damn. Also, stop the hate for her just because all of a sudden you are a PC person. Fucking piers morgan of all people doesn't have the privilege of criticizing Rampling.
I don't care if it's politically incorrect - Charlotte Rampling has a point.
(And that doesn't make me OR her a racist).
And I hope she doesn't apologize for the comment - celebrities apologizing is a major pet-peeve of mine.
Carol is on my mind. I desperately want to see it.
Also, this question has been on my mind (I think I may have asked it here a few weeks back but I didn't get a response) - when voting on best adapted screenplay, do Academy voters receive the adapted screenplay as well as the source material for their consideration, or just the adapted screenplay?
Rampling has a point with her notion of "anti-white racism"? It's not politically incorrect, it's simply incorrect. Why do people trot out "PC" and "liberal" as insults whenever they feel the need to parade their ignorance, intolerance and other reactionary views?
I meant, she has a point when she said:
One can never really know, but perhaps the black actors did not deserve to make the final list.
Maybe, just maybe
the Academy really truly felt that these actors were the best of 2015, is that so unthinkable?
Anyway, one can only imagine that this will be a good opportunity for Chris Rock to shine. Or will he not dare joke about it?
Yeah, she said a lot of things...
She apologized. For someone who has no problem being seen as a bitch this is a surprising turn of events.
Well, she said: "I regret that my comments could have been misinterpreted..." I've never considered statements that start that way to be apologies, but whatever.
I'm trying to catch up on movies from earlier in the year because even though I liked a lot of movies this year, I'm just not very excited for the acting categories for some reason.
So last night I watched Clouds of Sils Maria to see what all the fuss is about for Kristen Stewart. Despite kind of being a lead (I cannot believe that on this site, where Waltz is accused of category fraud for "Django Unchained," she's considered supporting), I kind of get the adoration but also kind of not? Her performance is very natural and subtle, which can deceive the viewer into thinking she's not doing much, but she's making a lot of small, detailed choices that are really interesting. But I could see how this performance would get overlooked, even if it was in a more popular movie.
I also saw The Little Foxes because I'm still trying to work my way up through the classics chronologically and it's oh my god it's taking me forever but Bette Davis!
And Nat, I thought of you while watching it because Wyler is able to get up to 5 people talking in a somewhat small frame, composed perfectly while making it look natural. Why can't modern directors do this instead of the constant cutting back and forth between two people?
I haven't watched the Oscars in 8 years. Think I will keep on not watching them.
I am watching Hitchcock's "Family Plot" this weekend, however.