gadd

If I ever re-watch the series I'll probably stop after The Long Night to be honest. It was flawed but at least some exciting and emotional moments, whereas the last 3 episodes left me numb. That being said, I'm still pretty pumped for House of the Dragon...

Over the past 6 weeks or so, my main aim has been to catch up on some older movies I ought to have seen by now, so the way I set about doing that was picking a filmmaker and watching some of the stuff they made I hadn't previously seen over the course of a week. A fortnight ago I focused on Jean-Pierre Melville's work, last week was based around Francis Ford Coppola's, this week is Michael Mann's. Here's what I got around to finally seeing from those guys: Melville - Le Samourai, Le Doulos, Army of Shadows (the best film I've watched in the last few weeks, incredible work), and Le Cercle Rouge. Coppola - The Conversation, Rumble Fish, The Godfather Part III (I held off as long as I could, it's not terrible but not great either), and Dracula. Mann - Thief, The Last of the Mohicans (I plan on watching Ali tonight and Miami Vice later in the week). I've watched some other older movies as well as some 2020 ones too like Tigertail, Bloodshot, Vivarium and best of all Never Rarely Sometimes Always which is my favorite of the year so far. In terms of TV, I jumped on the Tiger King train like most and caught the third season of Ozark which was easily the best of the show thus far in my opinion. I've also been slowly getting through Twin Peaks and The Sopranos, both first-time viewings. Needless to say they're pretty good...

I caught up with some of the 2011 films I hadn't seen - Take Shelter, A Separation and Margaret - and there's a chance all 3 will be making my top 50, with A Separation in particular being a lock for my top 10, I can't believe it took me so long to watch such a superb piece of cinema. I won't say too much for the people who haven't seen it yet, but the story went in a drastically different direction to what I expected based on the premise. Margaret was also pretty astounding. I went with the extended cut (3 hours) rather than the theatrical (2 and a half hours) and one of my thoughts when it ended was that while I adore Manchester by the Sea, this is what Kenneth Lonergan should've won his Oscar for (same with Anna Paquin by the way). Unfortunately, post-production was a complete mess but thankfully Lonergan's cut got to see the light of day. There's still a handful of films from the decade I want to check out for the first time including Mommy, Weekend, Leviathan, Ida, 45 Years and The Hunt but I'll have to start finalising my list now.

April 3rd.

There are a few films from 2011 I need to catch up with before I compile my list. I had thought for a while that it was a year of many really good films but not many great ones. However, I've heard very strong things about Margaret, A Separation, Take Shelter and Detachment so I'm going to try and watch all of those before submitting my picks.

https://www.indiewire.com/gallery/actor-director-pairing-2020/del-toro-blanchette/ "Searchlight Pictures has not announced an official release date for Guillermo del Toro’s “Nightmare Alley,” but the studio has every intention of getting it in theaters before the end of 2020".

The presentation order this year didn't do the show any favours. Handing Brad Pitt his Oscar, followed by Animated Feature and then the Screenplay awards so early in the show meant that there was very little momentum to carry the rest of the show. It felt like everyone was waiting for the Director award to give us an idea of the Best Picture winner. Compare that to last year when they saved the Screenplay and Animated winners for later in the show, and also had the Cooper/Gaga trump card to play which enticed younger viewers.

This is one of the reasons I got a Cineworld Unlimited card. They had a lot of advance screenings for some of the Oscar contenders in December, so by the time the awards season kicked off I'd seen almost all of the contenders, when usually I'm playing catch up in January and early February.

Interestingly enough, the last few Best Picture winners have been released in February in the UK. I think Moonlight came out the weekend of the Oscars in 2017, akin to Parasite this year. The presumptive frontrunner - The Revenant, La La Land, Three Billboards and 1917 - has tended to come out in the second week of January.

It's quite amazing how the Oscars and Emmys were dominated by two productions from outside the US - Parasite and Fleabag - which both felt like underdogs getting by on word-of-mouth until they upset the 'safe', revered filmmakers, actors, etc.

I hope one of the effects of Parasite's amazing night is that it encourages people on this forum and elsewhere who aren't familiar with Bong's filmography to check out more of his movies. He's one of the best in the business.

Don Corleone (Brando and De Niro won Oscars for portraying him).

The Academy announced that they were going to introduce it, but the backlash was so strong that they eventually pulled back on it.

Parasite's SAG Ensemble win was the crucial turning point of the season.

Apologies if the following comes across as a bit cringe-worthy, but I have been following the Oscars to varying degrees since 2005, ironically when Crash won Best Picture, and have always anticipated the night of the ceremony year after year in spite of my grievances with the Academy. This is, by far, the best Best Picture win I've been fortunate enough to experience. I was over the moon when 12 Years a Slave won the award, but it was expected to win despite Gravity pushing it close. I was shocked and overwhelmed by Moonlight's win, the circumstances surrounding it and the cultural and historical significance of the victory, but it beat out what was my #1 movie of that year (La La Land) and I was disappointed that the team involved in Moonlight didn't get to fully bask in the glory of the result due to the envelope mix-up. Tonight, Parasite was my favorite movie of not only the nominees, but 2019 overall (a great year for films in general), it went into the night as the spoiler rather than the frontrunner, AND it had the foreign-language barrier to overcome. Thankfully, the movie won over AMPAS because of its quality, pure and simple. I thought for years that in order for a foreign-language film to win Best Picture, it would have to adhere to various Oscar movie tropes and/or be a box-office smash hit. However, Parasite didn't rely on a certain hook/gimmick (no shade to 1917 btw, big fan of the movie), no huge campaigns, no star-studded cast. The movie itself was the USP, making this a truly incredible result.

It was a worse ceremony but the winners were far superior, although that was to be expected given the quality of the nominees compared to 2018's.

Joaquin Phoenix won an Oscar. About time.

The last 15 minutes might've redeemed the rest of the show. Maybe not, but for the first time in the night I'm captivated.

About time Brie Larson got to present an Oscar to someone she actually admires.

They didn't nominate Black Panther, they gave it to First Man last year.