Jake Gittes

I share the first part. I just think it's kinda cheesy. Except the Peter Falk parts which are great.

SOTM 7 tho

Wait. If I bet 10k and win, multiplied by the number in brackets don't I get 20k for Despicable Me (10,000x2), 18k for Boss Baby, 31k for Dunkirk, etc.? I'm not sure how you arrived at these points.

25?

My favorite movie of the year is still John Wick. I need to finally watch something cool I'm sure I'll be all over like Nocturama or whatever the latest Hong Sang-soo joint is (I think he put out three this year already?) so I can claim it as #1 and regard most other people here as the casuals they are.

The original point was still "La La Land doesn't measure up to anything Nolan's ever done because..." well first it was because homage, then it became because Nolan does big-budget cultural phenomenon type films. That still in no way works as an argument for the original opinion in my eyes, but whatever.

Holy hell at that entire story.

There's gotta be a dozen places all reporting box-office as dry news. Don't see what the harm is in guys like Collider having some fun with it tbh

In a La La Land vs Moonlight situation, La La Land's actually Star Wars.

It is for a musical not based on a known property. It took Chazelle years to get money to make it. I don't see what you're basing this on. I see you moved away from the whole homage thing and are just basing this on size/budget/spectacle now? That's not the end-all and be-all. Only Scorsese can direct Goodfellas and make it what it is, and Wes Anderson is sure as hell the only person who can properly direct a Wes Anderson movie. These are all very personal projects that you're listing, and at best you can argue that Nolan's work is no more or less special than Chazelle's because it takes them and only them to come up with what they want to do in the first place.

You don't need to defend Polanski to be inspired by RB.

You realize an original live-action musical on the scale of La La Land hadn't been done in decades before Chazelle made it?

Unless the fall festivals give us a whole bunch of new definitive contenders (which, who knows) this could end up being a pretty slim Oscar year. I can picture a Best Picture line-up of like 7 movies. Would be pleasantly surprised with the usual 9.

It's a lot better than the Conjuring 2 hold. I expected a 13m weekend following the weekdays.

Nomination talk for Rylance in Dunkirk is crazy to me. And I think he deserved it for Bridge of Spies, but here I'm on the side of Michael Shannon. What did he even do?

La La Land is no more an homage to anything than TDK is an homage to Heat or Interstellar is one to Solaris/2001. It has zero bearing on quality anyway.

They did get 13th a best documentary nod, and Idris Elba got SAG for Beasts of No Nation. In the long run it might be a matter of promotion and convincing people, though right now I agree they'd do better by at least meeting the other side halfway somehow.

They are copying Weinstein's approach with King's Speech/The Imitation Game/The Artist essentially, yeah. Good for them, they need it especially now that they don't have Woody Allen movies anymore.

Netflix is putting Mudbound out in November. Released in conventional fashion it'd probably be a contender for a bunch of nominations at least but as it stands it's a wildcard.

Sony Classics got pretty lucky getting the rights to Call Me by Your Name for "north of 6m" before it even premiered. They can still fuck up the release/expansion, of course, but it won't be anyone's fault but their own considering the movie will be all over the awards no matter what, and probably do solid in Europe.

They're still chasing the success of Little Miss Sunshine a decade later.

They should just expand it back to 1500 theaters or thereabouts. Its PTA holds have been monstrous for the past month.

The write-ups don't require personal opinions though right? Looking at 2012 it was basically the cast/crew, poster/trailer, synopsis, some easy-to-find trivia, some RTM/critical comments if available. I have a busy next couple of days, but if not much gets done by Tuesday I could PM you guys about doing at least a chunk of it over the week.

What the hell is with The Big Sick being up 35% from last Friday? Did Lionsgate just give it a ton of double features with Hitman's Bodyguard or something?