The Oscars are weird in that people (including myself) don’t really know how they work and what they mean. They’re not awards for financial success, and a seemingly “overhead” nomination doesn’t mean trickle-down into other categories. Best Picture seems to be an award for Producers, covering a number of aspects to make the film happen; but it seems strange that it’s somehow separate from the director and therefore doesn’t imply Best Director. Or that there leads were simply the best.
Even though interest in the Academy Awards has been waning, it’s pretty remarkable that they’ve made this industry award, with all sorts of insidery crap the average movie-goer has no awareness of, such a major and talked about event for so long. It really exists separate from a normal person’s experience with movie-going and appreciation.
Gregory Peck moves out west to be with his fiancée Carol Baker but ends up caught between feudin’ redneck dumbasses and falls in love with Jean Simmons instead. Charlton Heston is the stupid rapist piece of shit son of Burl Ives on the one side and Chuck Conner is the son of fancy redneck Charles Bickford on the other, fighting over Simmons’ watering hole.
Eventually the redneck dumbasses’ redneck Paw Paws finally shoot each other, the end.
Gregory Peck and the Mexican ranch hand Ramone were the only decent guys in the whole horrible place. I loved the scene where Peck’s stunt double tames a bucking horse, and every scene with Jean Simmons
Good summary but you’ve got the rednecks mixed up. Connors is the rapist son of Burl Ives. Charlton is the “manly men act XTRA MANLY!!! Grrr!!!” foreman on Charles Bickford’s ranch.
“André once let rip for 18 uninterrupted seconds. While that’s neither been confirmed nor denied, Elwes was happy to admit in his memoirs that the gas emanating from the hard-drinking giant was so nauseous it could grind shooting to a standstill.
Recalling “one of the most monumental farts any of us had ever heard” coming from his scene partner, Elwes acknowledged that “you wouldn’t expect a man of André’s dimensions to pass gas quietly or unobtrusively”. However, he couldn’t help but describe this one as “truly epic, a veritable symphony of gastric distress that roared for more than several seconds and shook the very foundations of the wood and plaster set we were now grabbing onto out of sheer fear”.”
Netflix dropped Nimona on YouTube for free.
If not having a Netflix subscription is the reason you haven’t seen it, take this opportunity. It was great
I guess it doesn’t track with my experience of film viewing but I probably don’t watch exclusively the top 100. I would have thought there were much more women’s stories and women of colour with important roles in films I see. It’s disappointing though.
[ETA I have noted 12 films I watched this year though I have watched quite a few more. Two didn’t have women leads or co leads and one of those is Holdovers which does have a great role and performance for a woman.
Only one film directed by a woman though. Now I can think of a couple of others I’ve watched recently directed by women but I guess the list is a reasonable sample. That’s absolutely shocking. I’m surprised by how few. None of the films I’ve seen, or am going to see in the cinema in the next week have women directors.
]
That said the last two films I saw were All of us strangers and Zone of Interest and while both were great they had comparatively minor roles for women. Particularly All of Us Strangers which was essentially a two hander between two gay men (Paul Mescal and Andrew “hot priest” Scott, I have a suspicion that the two of them getting it on in their excruciatingly shy fashion may have had many women I know raving about the film. I would suggest that you go to Ira Sachs’s recent Passages for some more passionate representation of men…).
Zone of interest is fantastic. Watch it. I think that if Hoss’s wife had more screen time in it that the film would have been misogynistic. You have to portray evil responsibility where it lies. It did have women exhibiting some conscience and we didn’t see that from any male character.
I feel incapable of writing anything about them without spoilers. Despite there being no spoiler required for the Nazis murdered millions of Jews and Höß was one of the chief engineer managers of it.
Sadly, it’s not just women in film who are underrepresented:
It just goes to show who holds the power in that industry. In the 1980s and 1990s I noticed group profiles of actresses who became producers or directors in entertainment magazines. They all basically told the same story of doing that in order to provide more opportunities for themselves and other women because the gatekeeping was so bad, and/or ageism was hitting women during the peak of their acting careers. SSDD:
(I normally link to teh wikis but the entry is minimal to say the least) and I feel that many here would enjoy it too.
Kropotkin! Watchmakers making watches! Ingenious mechanisms! Engineering! Solidarity! Mapmaking!
It’s like a greatest hits around here. Go watch it. Don’t listen to me. The reviewer above wrote it better than I can.
Myself and my mate loved it. The beginning is a long section of cooking in a rural posh kitchen in 19thC France with pretty much no talking. It’s like the beginning of Once Upon a Time in the West except no tension and you also wish it just went on and on and on. The film is kind of Ban this Filth Now! Level of cooking porn/produce porn/ gorgeous pots and pans on lewd display throughout. But its sweet and gentle heart wins it a lot of leeway for me.
Imagine the cooking scenes in the Bear or Boiling Point only the kitchen is a place of love and respect. The junior brings her young niece in and they stop to listen to her responses to the things they ask her to try. The two leads’ respect for each other and partnership in the kitchen is a warm glow that makes the seasonal changes in food and life a well lived life.
A couple of people coming out of it asked us did we like it, and more importantly “what was that?” So it’s not for everyone. You could argue not much happened (the seasons changed, the dishes changed, life changed) but unlike most bang bang jump crash explode movies I didn’t find a big longeur about an hour and 15 minutes in that made me query my life choices. This held me all the way through. La Binoche was great and the male lead was, I only read after, her ex. I’ve barely seen him in anything.
