OSCARS 2022 Nominations and Winners

[Chris Knipp]

I think King Richard is a great story, well "served."

I'm not into the comic book stories from one to the other so the plot details of The Batman didn't matter to me much, but you are probably quite right to question those story elements. I watched it for the visuals, which are beautiful and the cinematographer just won an Oscar for Dune. I filter movies by trailers myself lately I admit. I also read lots of reviews, both before and after. Sometimes they are more interesting than the movies they're about. Also the French reivews (excerpted on the French site AlloCiné) - great. The French love cinema, they are intellectual, and the result is interesting reviews. Not a coincidence that the Nouvelle Vague grew largely out of directors who started out as film critics on Cahiers du Cinéma.

Just watched a couple of interviews with the great Jean-Pierre Melville, not exactly Nouvelle Vague but an inspiration to them, who reminds you that back then, the way to learn how to make movie was to watch them and the only way was to go to the movies and stay from morning till the small hours watching one movie after another - on the big screen, sitting up close.

[Johann]

I also read lots of reviews, both before and after. Sometimes they are more interesting than the movies they're about. Also the French reivews (excerpted on the French site AlloCiné) - great. The French love cinema, they are intellectual, and the result is interesting reviews. Not a coincidence that the Nouvelle Vague grew largely out of directors who started out as film critics on Cahiers du Cinéma.

Agree.
The best directors are film lovers. They instinctively know what works and what doesn’t.
Kubrick became a director after seeing scores and scores of movies in New York and saying to himself “I can do better than what I’m seeing!”
The French are arguably the most passionate film lovers- that New Wave is proof.
Bergman noticed a new language brought to cinema when he saw Ivan’s Childhood by Andrei Tarkovsky.
Scorsese- a totally obsessed cinephile/historian.
Kurosawa- loved John Ford
The lists are endless.

[Chris Knipp]

Yes! The French have a higher percentage of cinephiles than anywhere else in the world. Though small, their film industry is top quality and its products sometimes are more accessible to us than the excellent Asian ones.

The kind of historical movie where everyone regardless of origins speaks modern English has become passé, I feel, but Ridley keeps on making them. The Last Duel is one: medieval Frenchmen speaking modern English. It's on HBO I find and I'm taking a look at it.

Ridley's filmography is somewhat hit or miss; you seem to like the grand ones like Exodus that aren't the critical successes as we can see from a Vulture website list of his work from worst to best complied by AV Club's Scott Tobias.

The top six according to this are: 1. Alien (1979), 2. Blade Runner (1982), 3. The Duellists (1977), 4. Thelma & Louise (1991), 5. The Martian (2015), and 6. The Counselor (2013). I'm curious to see The Duelists and The Counselor, which I haven't, and maybe rewatch Alien.

I do like Adam Driver in just about anything. Matt Damon is starting to seem a little worn out sometimes. He was great in The Martian, perhaps not so good in The Last Duel (The Duelists is Scott's better "Duel" film).

[Johann]

Peter Greenaway (one of my favourite directors) singled out Ridley Scott in a recent interview.
He admires Blade Runner and Gladiator as fantastic visual productions.
His filmography is hit and miss, and that is where the criticism lies, that he’s not consistent enough.
To me the strengths of his best work outweigh the lesser work.
He’s very cinematic, very visual, and you want that from a director. It’s the execution of his stories (acting, plot) where he gets tripped up. Case in point: Legend with Tom Cruise. Visually amazing but a little weak story wise.
He’s a cult director to me, not a blockbuster man.
Since Gladiator’s huge success he’s made big movies, and I don’t begrudge him that. The bigger the better!
He dedicated Exodus to his deceased brother Tony, a good director in his own right. His suicide was confusing to me.

Napoleon has got my attention. I have real excitement for it. Joaquin is so hot right now, and he could potentially win another Oscar for it. I hear you on the English. This won’t be a true foreign film as it should be.
It will be a blockbuster- style historical epic.
It will be “Hollywood”

[Chris Knipp]

RIDLEY SCOTT'S THE LAST DUEL (2021).

Well, much of the dialogue seems to me in principle tone deaf; I can't help remembering that in the late 14th century when this true story occurs, apart from the fact that these people in reality would be speaking medieval French, there was nothing remotely like modern English. The Rashomon-like three-part storytelling is laborious, making the 2 1/2-hour movie over-long, and the rape part is too similar in each part to make much difference. Various critics have suggested just the third part, from the lady's POV, written by Nicole Holofcener (Friends with Money, Please Give, Enough Said; Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, who're in the cast, wrote the first two parts), would have been good enough by itself for a leaner, swifter, more clean emotional thrust.

But wait a minute: lots of this is good, and at least looks great. Where Ridley shines is in the purely physical, violent bits, and the final, complete sequence of the medieval duel-to-the-death starting out with lances and horseback and ending with hand-to-hand hacking with swords, long blades, and halberds, in its extreme brutality and the rich Pasolini-like crowd watching, is shockingly convincing, visceral, and real. The contemporary relevance is in the basis of the duel: a woman's (Jodie Comer's) accusation of rape which results in the King ordaining a duel between her husband (Matt Damon) and the accused men (Adam Driver), his former good friend who has become an enemy. It turns out that if her husband loses, she will be considered guilty and will be locked in an iron halter and burned to death, orphaning her newborn son. High stakes. Good story. There's enough talent and money involved for a work of traditional Hollywood, though outmoded, to still shine.

Ridley's weakness with story shows here not in the story being weak; it's a great story - but in the three-version presentation not quite justifying itself, and winding up making us a little tired of the story - till that great visceral final duel. I'm not sure there is a clear visual style, or any style at all, but it's still as you say, "very cinematic, very visual." Uneven though Ridley is, I agree he's done some wonderful stuff. I remember what an immense impression Thelma & Louise made the first time, and as for Blade Runner, it's part of the canon of the greatest movies of all time. (I think Tony Scott's suicide was confusing to everybody.)

[Johann]

Bravo.
Thanks for that report.
I’d heard that what made the movie great was the duel itself, that it was exciting and visceral.
It’s on my list of must-sees.

[Chris Knipp]

I confirm that.

[Johann]

Saw King Richard today. I’m unable to post on your thread Chris.

Great movie about determination.
Will Smith is good, but he didn’t make me forget he was Will Smith.
He should have been nominated but I don’t think he should have won.
All he really did was go unshaven and talk with a lisp.
He didn’t disappear into this role, as I expect from a Best Actor win.

We don’t need a Venus & Serena movie- we got it with King Richard.
The two girls who play them are perfect. I believed in them.