I’m not particularly a car guy but I thought F1 was fine entertainment, and really enjoyed the superb cinematography.
I don’t understand the acclaim for this, either.
Sinners was fine entertainment but I’m astonished that it’s not only up for Best Picture, but has the most Oscar nominations of any film in history. I rather suspect some politicking behind the scenes. Hamnet and Bugonia – especially Hamnet – deserve way better. Train Dreams is one of the few I haven’t seen, but my expectation matches your description and I probably won’t bother.
I watched Hamnet, and Frankenstein. I have now seen 7 of the 10 Best Picture nominees (I have not seen Bugonia, Sentimental Value, and The Secret Agent). Hamnet is a nice story that’s nicely done, but its pacing is very slow. I’m not a fan. I really liked Frankenstein and so far that is my favorite of the 7 I’ve seen.
F1 was fine entertainment. I saw it long ago and may need to watch it again to remind myself if I like it better than Frankenstein.
I’ve seen all except Sentimental Value and Secret Agent – also haven’t seen Train Dreams but what I’ve read I have no interest in seeing it.
Hamnet was my favourite until I decided to re-watch Frankenstein a second time. It’s a terrific film in every way provided you’re willing to indulge in considerable suspension of disbelief at the implausibility of building a creature in a private lab and animating it with a lightning bolt. But now Hamnet and Frankenstein are my top two favourites.
It was a terrific story, well told, with great acting by all the principal characters, notably Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein, Christopher Waltz as Harlander, a wealthy industrialist who offers to fund Frankenstein’s research, and Mia Goth as Elizabeth, a complicated and troubled young girl who is engaged to Oscar’s younger brother. The special effects and cinematography are also superb. I was disappointed that none of the principal actors got nominations, nor was it nominated for Visual Effects, although it was for Cinematography and a bunch of other categories.
To me, the major awards should have gone to Weapons. I think top acting, editing, directing, etc. should all go to it.
Foreign Film I enjoyed the most was Dhoom Dhaam. I can’t remember a lot of other foreign films this year, but most were Korean and it wasn’t a strong year from Korea. I did not see Takashi Miike’s latest movie, still can’t find a stream.
Thank you, I has totally missed that Jacob Elordi was nominated under “Supporting Actor”. I’m a little surprised as I thought Isaac and Waltz were equally deserving, but Elordi’s role was certainly dramatically demanding, even though he didn’t actually have any lines until well into the second half of the movie.
I’ve now seen 8 of the 10 Best Picture nominees, except only The Secret Agent (which I may watch tonight) and Train Dreams, which I initially said I had no interest in but I may give it a shot anyway.
Of the ones I’ve seen, my top three so far are Frankenstein, Hamnet, and Sentimental Value. Of the three, Sentimental Value is the most abstract and cerebral, its strengths coming from the writing and amazingly accomplished acting. It will be interesting to see how the Academy judges it. If it doesn’t win Best Picture (I’m guessing it probably won’t) I hope it picks up a ton of other awards, particularly for acting, writing, and directing.
Of the others, One Battle After Another is my least favourite, and while Sinners is very good, I think it’s overrated.
Oscar winner selections usually go against my preferences. We’ll see what happens this year.
I thought Train Dreams was haunting and beautiful. It’s a slow one but maybe I was in the mood for that. I was also surprised at how good Frankenstein was, especially the creature himself was well realized. Having read the book and a fan of both leads, Hamnet made me cry like a baby and loved how they portrayed the ending. I believe those are the only ones I’ve watched and I would say Train Dreams had the most impact on me.
It’s a crime Train Dreams didn’t get a proper theater release (screw you Netflix!) because the cinematography is gorgeous and deserves to be seen on a big screen. Hopefully since it’s actually showing during AMC’s Best Picture Showcase (Netflix films previously never did), this may bode well for the two companies playing nice in the future.
Yeah, I was quite surprised to see they’d finally added Netflix films. We have Netflix so we could fill in the gaps, but I prefer seeing all of them in the theater.
The Academy rules still require that the films be available in theaters (even if briefly) in Los Angeles, New York City, the Bay Area, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth or Atlanta. So even Netflix has to arrange for a theatrical release.
Basically that they’ve included Netflix movies for a long while, as long as Netflix does the theatrical release. Certainly Netflix wants the nominations and awards.
Googling, the first nomination for a Netflix movie was in 2014, though that was a documentary. Roma in 2019 was their first best picture nomination.
Thank you to those who’ve recommended Train Dreams and elaborated on what kind of movie it is. It’s now in my “must-watch” queue, but I just started watching The Secret Agent last night and have to finish that first.
Once I’m done I’ll have watched all the Best Picture nominees as well as many of the other films that had nominations in major categories – and I bet that all my preferences will be rejected. The Oscars have a unique ability to piss me off, with a few rare exceptions. I blame industry politics!
