Weekend Thread (1/25-1/27): Weekend Estimates: Glass 19M l Upside 12.2M l Aquaman 7.3M l Kid WWB King 7.2M l Spider-Verse: 5.5M l Green Book 5.2M l Serenity 4.8M

[Ipickthiswhiterose]

I think the thing that people simply don't realise with the Acting noms is the respective levels of difficulty with performances and it's really starting to get my goat.

 

When Bale or Malek win, that's going to be 18, yes EIGHTEEN, Best Actor or Actress Awards THIS CENTURY for biopic performances as famous people. And that doesn't even include Jeff Bridges doing a fictionalised version of a role clearly based on a real person.

 

That's 50% of the Lead Actor Oscar for a genre of movie that barely gets 2-3% of all releases.

 

Does that make any sense to anyone? 

 

Thing is: giving a performance based on the characteristics of a famous person is pretty much the simplest task you can give an actor. I mean "copying" is not the highest order skill when it comes to human behaviour. Yes, really it's more complicated than that, but compared to original performances (or even performances in conceptual biopics rather than facsimile ones) with a driving objective force, giving a rendition of the most well known/notable scenes from a person't life is not a relatively equivalent challenge.

 

The thing that's turned me even more against these performances, and I'll just use Malek as an example here because it's the one in front of us - is so many use the "It's a risk" argument. Or even worse the "They have a rabid fan base and so it could go wrong" argument.

 

1: That dynamic is no different from people playing roles in famous franchises and popular books, and

2: It isn't a risk performance wise. Compare Meryl Streep doing a Thatcher impersonation with her doing lead performance in broad, kitsch musical Mamma Mia. Which one of those is the real risk? What about Helen Mirren doing an impression of The Queen compared with her trying (and failing) to lead a horror film in Winchester or playing a panto villain Rat in Nutcracker?

 

In the same time as 18 have WON best actor or actress for biopics, 2 performances from horror movies have been NOMINATED in those categories. And the one of those who actually won (Natalie Portman for Black Swan) was sneakily positioned as a 'psychological drama' upon release rather than the horror movie it actually was (same as Silence of the Lambs was back in 1990).

 

And yet I (and I should probably be clear here that I'm a performance tutor and researcher and not just making this up) would strongly argue that horror, comedy and musical performances are FAR more challenging than biopic performances.

 

My argument: well here you go - try to name a list of good actors who have fallen flat on their face making a biopic. Maybe Travolta for Gotti (but you're pushing 'good actor' there, really and that was clearly a vanity project)? After that? Not much. But there is a list as long as your arm of examples of great actors falling flat on their face in comedies and horror films: heck, De Niro alone could probably get you to double figures. 

 

Why does it bother me so much? Hmmmmm. I think it's because of the relationship we have to expertise. If someone performs in a drama then there is a false sense that the performance quality might be subjective, whereas when Gary Oldman does a performances as Churchill and 'he really talks and acts like Churchill' then it *feels* more objectively accurate to say it's good. The thing is there ARE objective ways of judging a performance in a drama, you just need a higher order skill set and more experience to do it. 

 

Toni Collette gave one of the best performances of the last few years. She didn't get a nomination this year. Mostly because she deigned to give that performance in a horror film. Sam Rockwell did. For a half decent 10 minute impression of George Bush. I think that sums it up.

 

(Sorry for length. I realise I'm a pompous ass)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jake Gittes]

7 minutes ago, Ipickthiswhiterose said:

(Sorry for length. I realise I'm a pompous ass)

 

Nah that's all pretty right on. Was a good piece on AV Club recently about the Oscars, comedic performances, and specifically McAdams in Game Night (who I think fully deserved a nomination) echoing your sentiments. It always feels more special to me when someone wins an Oscar for playing at least an original character.

[Alli]

biopics are my least fav genre. so lazy

[Ipickthiswhiterose]

Just now, Jake Gittes said:

 

Nah that's all pretty right on. Was a good piece on AV Club recently about the Oscars, comedic performances, and specifically McAdams in Game Night (who I think fully deserved a nomination) echoing your sentiments. It always feels more special to me when someone wins an Oscar for playing at least an original character.

 

McAdams is one of my go-tos for this as well.

 

For Mean Girls.

 

Technically speaking, her performance in Mean Girls is perfection. Not only is it perfection, but it's perfection at a remarkably high difficulty level: 

 

She essentially has to balance being part of a two-dimensional ensemble group (the plastics), - functioning as if that group's a single entity at times, while also playing the archetypal gestic bitch, deliver one-liner-type quotes in a credible manner AND become a three dimensional rounded character as a slow reveal without losing the other elements. It's a darn masterclass. Everyone else in the movie is good but they either get to play pure naturalism (Lohan, Fey, the friends) or pure archetype (Poehler, Chabert, Seyfried). McAdams has to be the conduit/glue between those worlds and she's incredible.

 

Not only that, but this isn't some artsy performance in a film nobody knew. This was a commercially and critically enormously successful movie. Everyone knew she was brilliant.

 

It's just that the movie is of a type that everyone knows "shouldn't" win awards. 

 

What won Best Supporting Actress that year? Cate Blanchett for - you knew it was coming - doing an impression of Katherine Hepburn.

 

In a performance that wouldn't get within touching distance of a list of Top 10 Cate Blanchett roles. 

[TMP]

While we're on the topic of "actor as real life person" winning over a more deserving nominee, Daniel Day Lewis stole Joaquin Phoenix's Oscar for The Master

[Jake Gittes]

Blanchett should have won for her Bob Dylan instead. Now that was amazing.

[El Gato]

2 hours ago, grim22 said:

WB's all time top 10, Aquaman should finish 6th when its run is done

 

Rank	Movie Title (click to view)	Studio	Total Gross / Theaters		Opening / Theaters		Open
1	The Dark Knight	WB	$533,345,358	4,366	$158,411,483	4,366	7/18/08
2	The Dark Knight Rises	WB	$448,139,099	4,404	$160,887,295	4,404	7/20/12
3	Wonder Woman	WB	$412,563,408	4,165	$103,251,471	4,165	6/2/17
4	Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2	WB	$381,011,219	4,375	$169,189,427	4,375	7/15/11
5	American Sniper	WB	$350,126,372	3,885	$633,456	4	12/25/14
6	Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice	WB	$330,360,194	4,256	$166,007,347	4,242	3/25/16
7	It	WB (NL)	$327,481,748	4,148	$123,403,419	4,103	9/8/17
8	Suicide Squad	WB	$325,100,054	4,255	$133,682,248	4,255	8/5/16
9	Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone	WB	$317,575,550	3,672	$90,294,621	3,672	11/16/01
10	Aquaman	WB	$310,904,074	4,184	$67,873,522	4,125	12/21/18

 

 

In the past 2 years, BvS, Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman and now Aquaman have pushed 3 Harry Potter movies out of the top 10. Used to be a good balance between Potter, Middle Earth and Batman, now its 60% DC movies.

Wonder Woman 1984, The Batman solo and if WB delivers a good film, Blue Beetle (Latino audience) will more than likely make that list 80% DC. Easy to see who WB's cash cow truly is

[Ipickthiswhiterose]

8 minutes ago, TMP said:

While we're on the topic of "actor as real life person" winning over a more deserving nominee, Daniel Day Lewis stole Joaquin Phoenix's Oscar for The Master

 

Oh boy, ain't that the truth. What a performance. I'd probably have him as the winner this year as well for You Were Never Really Here.

 

I think the thing is that many of these awards have gone to great actors, which is why nobody tends to complain. They've just gone to great actors in roles that aren't even close to their best.

 

Malik winning might make a change because it would be the third - after Jamie Foxx and Eddie Redmayne - where people might realise looking at their previous and subsequent filmography that maybe, possibly, they aren't exactly the performer that their big award made it seem like they were when they were hailed for some miraculous performance. But it will take a few years and people will more likely just forget like they did with Foxx.

 

The most idiotic may well be Philip Seymour Hoffman who in an entire career of absolutely incredible performances got his one and only Oscar for an impression of Truman Capote. Despite Toby Jones also doing a performance as Truman Capote that was literally exactly the same as Hoffman's (i.e.: An accurate rendition of Truman Capote) in another film released in the exact same year.

 

 

Edited January 26, 2019 by Ipickthiswhiterose

[Jake Gittes]

DDL in Lincoln the one recent biopic performance I actually thought deserved to win tbh. But that's DDL for you. He made it a lived-in performance instead of just showy.

[TMP]

Just now, Jake Gittes said:

DDL in Lincoln the one recent biopic performance I actually thought deserved to win tbh. But that's DDL for you. He made it a lived-in performance instead of just showy.

In any other year I'd think he'd deserve it, but The Master had an all-timer performance with Joaquin

[Ipickthiswhiterose]

 

I'd concur - The Master may well be top performance of the decade for me.

 

Equally, I'd point out it's facsimile/pure-naturalism performances that are my problem. I'd have no problem with any of the Favourite ladies win this year, or Willem Defoe. Amadeus has some of my all time favourite acting, and I love Meryl Streep's performance at Julia Childs. But it's precisely because, as I think a critic said at the time, she makes no attempt to actually play the historic person - she is aiming to play what Julia Childs represents in the head of Amy Adams' character. That's back to a high level of difficulty and absolutely worthy. Same with Blanchett as Dylan.

 

 

Edited January 26, 2019 by Ipickthiswhiterose

[JB33]

52 minutes ago, Ipickthiswhiterose said:

I think the thing that people simply don't realise with the Acting noms is the respective levels of difficulty with performances and it's really starting to get my goat.

 

When Bale or Malek win, that's going to be 18, yes EIGHTEEN, Best Actor or Actress Awards THIS CENTURY for biopic performances as famous people. And that doesn't even include Jeff Bridges doing a fictionalised version of a role clearly based on a real person.

 

That's 50% of the Lead Actor Oscar for a genre of movie that barely gets 2-3% of all releases.

 

Does that make any sense to anyone? 

 

Thing is: giving a performance based on the characteristics of a famous person is pretty much the simplest task you can give an actor. I mean "copying" is not the highest order skill when it comes to human behaviour. Yes, really it's more complicated than that, but compared to original performances (or even performances in conceptual biopics rather than facsimile ones) with a driving objective force, giving a rendition of the most well known/notable scenes from a person't life is not a relatively equivalent challenge.

 

The thing that's turned me even more against these performances, and I'll just use Malek as an example here because it's the one in front of us - is so many use the "It's a risk" argument. Or even worse the "They have a rabid fan base and so it could go wrong" argument.

 

1: That dynamic is no different from people playing roles in famous franchises and popular books, and

2: It isn't a risk performance wise. Compare Meryl Streep doing a Thatcher impersonation with her doing lead performance in broad, kitsch musical Mamma Mia. Which one of those is the real risk? What about Helen Mirren doing an impression of The Queen compared with her trying (and failing) to lead a horror film in Winchester or playing a panto villain Rat in Nutcracker?

 

In the same time as 18 have WON best actor or actress for biopics, 2 performances from horror movies have been NOMINATED in those categories. And the one of those who actually won (Natalie Portman for Black Swan) was sneakily positioned as a 'psychological drama' upon release rather than the horror movie it actually was (same as Silence of the Lambs was back in 1990).

 

And yet I (and I should probably be clear here that I'm a performance tutor and researcher and not just making this up) would strongly argue that horror, comedy and musical performances are FAR more challenging than biopic performances.

 

My argument: well here you go - try to name a list of good actors who have fallen flat on their face making a biopic. Maybe Travolta for Gotti (but you're pushing 'good actor' there, really and that was clearly a vanity project)? After that? Not much. But there is a list as long as your arm of examples of great actors falling flat on their face in comedies and horror films: heck, De Niro alone could probably get you to double figures. 

 

Why does it bother me so much? Hmmmmm. I think it's because of the relationship we have to expertise. If someone performs in a drama then there is a false sense that the performance quality might be subjective, whereas when Gary Oldman does a performances as Churchill and 'he really talks and acts like Churchill' then it *feels* more objectively accurate to say it's good. The thing is there ARE objective ways of judging a performance in a drama, you just need a higher order skill set and more experience to do it. 

 

Toni Collette gave one of the best performances of the last few years. She didn't get a nomination this year. Mostly because she deigned to give that performance in a horror film. Sam Rockwell did. For a half decent 10 minute impression of George Bush. I think that sums it up.

 

(Sorry for length. I realise I'm a pompous ass)

This is a really good post. I honestly have never thought about it this way. However, you do touch on something that did come to my mind awhile ago and that was Sam Rockwell's performance as George W in VICE. So I see what you mean. That performance really wasn't anything to write home about (not bad, mind you), yet he's up for a best supporting actor award. And yes, Toni Collette was utterly snubbed because, well, why would the academy recognize a film like that.

 

It's why I've pretty much tuned out the Oscars, like many people. They're a joke.

 

Edited January 26, 2019 by JB33

[Zakiyyah6]

3 hours ago, grim22 said:

WB's all time top 10, Aquaman should finish 6th when its run is done

 

Rank	Movie Title (click to view)	Studio	Total Gross / Theaters		Opening / Theaters		Open
1	The Dark Knight	WB	$533,345,358	4,366	$158,411,483	4,366	7/18/08
2	The Dark Knight Rises	WB	$448,139,099	4,404	$160,887,295	4,404	7/20/12
3	Wonder Woman	WB	$412,563,408	4,165	$103,251,471	4,165	6/2/17
4	Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2	WB	$381,011,219	4,375	$169,189,427	4,375	7/15/11
5	American Sniper	WB	$350,126,372	3,885	$633,456	4	12/25/14
6	Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice	WB	$330,360,194	4,256	$166,007,347	4,242	3/25/16
7	It	WB (NL)	$327,481,748	4,148	$123,403,419	4,103	9/8/17
8	Suicide Squad	WB	$325,100,054	4,255	$133,682,248	4,255	8/5/16
9	Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone	WB	$317,575,550	3,672	$90,294,621	3,672	11/16/01
10	Aquaman	WB	$310,904,074	4,184	$67,873,522	4,125	12/21/18

 

 

In the past 2 years, BvS, Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman and now Aquaman have pushed 3 Harry Potter movies out of the top 10. Used to be a good balance between Potter, Middle Earth and Batman, now its 60% DC movies.

And delusional bitter people actually have tried to convince people that Aquaman is under performing in North America. I bet you Aquaman did better than WB's expectations in North America. 

[Plain Old Tele]

What so much of these goes to show is that people vote for (1) people they like and (2) things that are obvious.

[lilmac]

ASIB and even Spideyverse could end up catching Venom. Wow. 

[Nova]

2 hours ago, Jake Gittes said:

 

Nah that's all pretty right on. Was a good piece on AV Club recently about the Oscars, comedic performances, and specifically McAdams in Game Night (who I think fully deserved a nomination) echoing your sentiments. It always feels more special to me when someone wins an Oscar for playing at least an original character.

Rachael McAdams was robbed of a nomination spot. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again but giving that kind of comedic performance isn’t as easy as it looks but unfortunately it’s a genre that always gets under looked. Same thing with horror. Like Toni Collette should have gotten nominated for Hereditary. 

[Nova]

9 minutes ago, Telemachos said:

What so much of these goes to show is that people vote for (1) people they like and (2) things that are obvious.

I’ve heard that a lot of members end up voting for obvious picks or whatever you call them because a lot of them don’t watch the other movies (there are so many movies that come out in a year) or they fear that if they vote for someone unlikely to get in that it ends up being a throw away vote. I don’t know if that makes sense or if it even has any truth to it lol 

[James]

2 hours ago, El Gato said:

Wonder Woman 1984, The Batman solo and if WB delivers a good film, Blue Beetle (Latino audience) will more than likely make that list 80% DC. Easy to see who WB's cash cow truly is

To be fair, this is how the worldwide list looks like:

 

HP8 - 1.341 B

TDKR - 1.084 B

Aquaman - 1.077 B

The Hobbit 1 - 1.021 B

TDK - 1.004 B

HP1 - 975 M

HP7 - 960 M

The Hobbit 2 - 958 M

The Hobbit 3 - 956 M

HP5 - 940 M

HP6 - 934 M

HP4 - 897 M

HP2 - 879 M

BvS - 673 M

Inception - 828 M

WW - 821 M

FB1 - 814 M

HP3 - 796 M

Suicide Squad  - 746M

Matrix- 742 M

 

Their WW top 10 is made of: 4 Wizarding World movies, 3 Hobbit movies, 3 DC movies.

Their WW top 20 is made of: 9 Wizarding World movies, 6 DC movies, 3 Hobbit movies, Inception and Matrix.

 

DC is big but aside from Aquaman (which was lightning in a bottle) none of the post-Nolan DCEU movies have truly been huge OS. And as it is obvious by this list (and the general WW list), that if you want to push for the big leagues you need to do phenomenal OS (unless you are SW). Hollywood is a worldwide business. DOM is just a country (or two, Canada being included).

[Legion Again]

1 hour ago, lilmac said:

ASIB and even Spideyverse could end up catching Venom. Wow. 

Err, what? Are we talking DOM total here? ASIB and BR can make a run, but no way for Spidey.

[Krissykins]

Game Night? Really?

 

I love McAdams, but everyone in that film was basically just playing themselves.