2015 Academy Awards Discussion

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

The best speech of the night was J. K. Simmons.
Musical numbers were boring. Tegan and Sara have some good songs, but "Everything is Awesome" is not one - I guess they were really hard up this year.
It was nice to see Wes' film do well. I'd have liked to see Linklater win for director.
NPH made some good jokes but that thing went on far too long.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Honestly, which 2014 movies will be really remembered in ten years? Probably Interstellar, as it's one of the top movies in its genre already, but beyond that?

Birdman, Boyhood, and American Sniper are very time-specific movies, and Grand Budapest Hotel will probably blend in with Anderson's other movies. Biopics are quickly forgotten. Whiplash is a maybe, but most people don't know about it even now. Gone Girl doesn't seem like the type of movie to endure, but who knows. All the superhero movies blend together, but maybe GotG has a chance... I kind of doubt it, though. Maybe The Lego Movie? Edge of Tomorrow? I honestly don't see 2014 as a very "historic" year for movies.

Being time-specific isn't necessarily a bad thing. Boyhood in particular was very clearly angling for a sort of 'sign and symbol of the times' feeling--the fact that it was so blatant about this was part of what rubbed me the wrong way about it--and I think that it might have done it well enough that people will continue to respond to it as a representation of the 2000s and early 2010s into the future. Birdman is probably the sort of thing that a specific group of people will continue to talk about (I'm not sure quite how to define this group, and I don't think it's just 'movie people' as conventionally understood), but not necessarily the general public.

American Sniper will be treated as a footnote in Clint Eastwood's career at best, an oozing abscess on the shoulderblade of Clint Eastwood's career at worst, even five years from now, to say nothing of ten or twenty or fifty.

What genre could Interstellar be said to be 'one of the top movies' in? Certainly not sci-fi as a whole; maybe some specific type of sci-fi.

[DemPGH]

I generally agree with realisticidealist. These are good dramas. Do we have The Godfather here? No. Not close.

(I admit that I'm not a fan of Wes Anderson).

The most staying power might be The Theory of Everything because it concerns an individual for whom there is much interest and fascination. Also Interstellar, yeah, because of the publicity and the name recognition behind it.

People don't remember The Departed?

The Artist might have been a better recent example to cite, but The Departed is surely not on the same level as Goodfellas or even Raging Bull, movies that did not win best picture. To me, at least. It's anecdotal, but the last time I heard someone talk about The Departed was a few years ago. Like 2010. The last time I heard someone talk about Goodfellas, a twenty-five year old movie, was last week, actually.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

I'll add that as a Wes Anderson fan I don't get the appeal of The Grand Budapest Hotel specifically. Why is it supposed to be so much better than The Royal Tenenbaums? Is it really any better than Moonrise Kingdom?

[Gustaf]

I'll add that as a Wes Anderson fan I don't get the appeal of The Grand Budapest Hotel specifically. Why is it supposed to be so much better than The Royal Tenenbaums? Is it really any better than Moonrise Kingdom?

I totally agree. GBH is a nice movie but it isn't his best and certainly doesn't stand out among his entire body of work.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

We can at least be sure that none of the awful Heritage pulp will last. Though we can be even surer that the British film industry will continue to churn them out because they know (and have done since the 1980s) that they win awards.

[afleitch]

Biopics are a staple. This decade seems to be 'science'/figure based as opposed to the music biopics the decade before.

[RI]

What genre could Interstellar be said to be 'one of the top movies' in? Certainly not sci-fi as a whole; maybe some specific type of sci-fi.

As much as I love sci-fi, it isn't exactly the "strongest" genre out there. I'd say Interstellar is a top ten, maybe top five sci-fi movie based on how "good" it is. It's my personal favorite, but I can acknowledge that 2001, for example, is "better" on the "good" scale even though it's a chore to sit through and doesn't have half the heart that Interstellar does (not to say that I don't admire 2001, though). I'd grant you a few other classic sci-fi films similarly, but not that many before the balance tips. Certainly not enough to push it out of the top ten.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I generally agree with realisticidealist. These are good dramas. Do we have The Godfather here? No. Not close.

(I admit that I'm not a fan of Wes Anderson).

The most staying power might be The Theory of Everything because it concerns an individual for whom there is much interest and fascination. Also Interstellar, yeah, because of the publicity and the name recognition behind it.

People don't remember The Departed?

The Artist might have been a better recent example to cite, but The Departed is surely not on the same level as Goodfellas or even Raging Bull, movies that did not win best picture. To me, at least. It's anecdotal, but the last time I heard someone talk about The Departed was a few years ago. Like 2010. The last time I heard someone talk about Goodfellas, a twenty-five year old movie, was last week, actually.

The Departed is at the about same level as Goodfellas (not quite as good, but it's definitely up there).

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

What genre could Interstellar be said to be 'one of the top movies' in? Certainly not sci-fi as a whole; maybe some specific type of sci-fi.

As much as I love sci-fi, it isn't exactly the "strongest" genre out there. I'd say Interstellar is a top ten, maybe top five sci-fi movie based on how "good" it is. It's my personal favorite, but I can acknowledge that 2001, for example, is "better" on the "good" scale even though it's a chore to sit through and doesn't have half the heart that Interstellar does (not to say that I don't admire 2001, though). I'd grant you a few other classic sci-fi films similarly, but not that many before the balance tips. Certainly not enough to push it out of the top ten.

Granted that sci-fi is not as strong a film genre as it is a literary (or even television) genre, but here we go.

2001, Aliens, Blade Runner, Terminator 2, Wrath of Khan, The Empire Strikes Back, Metropolis, District 9, Solaris, the original RoboCop, Fahrenheit 451, Silent Running, Voices of a Distant Star, Ghost in the Shell, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Fly, the original Planet of the Apes, Mad Max 2, Quatermass and the Pit, and Gattaca are all better films than Interstellar. I say this as somebody who, to go along with what you're saying, only likes about half of them.

[Lief 🗽]

I think Grand Budapest Hotel and Gone Girl will be remembered as part of the wider filmographies of Anderson and Fincher, but not necessarily on their own merits (though GBH's production/art design will surely be remembered as some of the best of this decade, IMO). Neither will ever be on a serious top 100 films of all time. Inarritu is a bit of a hack and not quite on the level of Fincher or Anderson, and Birdman by itself is very good (despite some of my criticisms) but not quite a masterpiece. Obviously no one is going to care about the British biopics, and American Sniper other than Bradley Cooper's performance is thoroughly mediocre. Films like Selma, Nightcrawler, and Whiplash could be as well-done remembered as early films from future great directors, but it's too early to know about that. Interstellar was okay, but not a masterpiece, and for "genre" films you really have to go above and beyond (unfortunately) to really be remembered as critically great (not to say it's impossible, of course; 2001 is arguably one of the top 5 films ever made, and then you have things like Star Wars or Alien that often end up in top 100 lists).

I think the two films, off the top of my head (might be forgetting something), that have a chance of being remembered as masterpieces are Boyhood and Under the Skin. Boyhood's critical popularity is really close to unprecedented. It has a 100 on Metacritc, was named film of the year on basically every critics list (including very historically influential things like Sight & Sound) and won basically every award that was voted on by critics instead of industry people. It's just the sort of epic, both in its production history and its scope as a film, to be remembered. Under the Skin is also incredibly popular, especially among the more "art house" critics, and it's the sort of sci-fi film that transcends the genre. That said, neither of these are really on the level of "best ever", but best ever films are obviously rare. I don't think we've had anything of that quality since 2007, when ironically both No Country for Old Men and There Will be Blood were released.

[Eraserhead]

2007 was definitely a good year for movies.

[Lief 🗽]

Yeah 2007 was great. Beyond the two I mentioned, which really are modern masterpieces, you have The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Zodiac, Eastern Promises, The Lives of Others, Inland Empire. Then you've got great not-as-serious films like Hot Fuzz (which is my favorite of the Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg trilogy), Ratatouille, The Host, Lars and the Real Girl... 2007 is probably one of the best years for film ever, IMO.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Don't forget Juno. And a forgotten film that got some attention again after the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman and is seriously great is The Savages.