Re: 2025 Academy Awards
 

Probably. Stone and Gladstone split those awards last year, respectively.

Re: 2025 Academy Awards
 

Hmm. Color this another year where I have no interest.

Why? Why is like this any more? I used to be an Oscar whore. Then, all of the sudden it felt like we just swing from extreme to extreme: blockbuster pandering bullshit that shouldn't be nominated to elitist art film bullshit that nobody cares if it is nominated.

I don't hate movies, just the pretentiousness in these award ceremonies.

Re: 2025 Academy Awards
 

I think this is overall a weak year, but I'd hardly call this years crop of best picture nominees elitist art film bullshit. Instead I'd call it a very well rounded selection. You've got a couple of classical Oscar type dramas, a couple of blockbusters, a few little indies that could, some international stuff and whatever you want to classify the Substance as. There's pretty much something for everyone. The biggest issue for me is I'm not sure that many of them are actually great.

Re: 2025 Academy Awards
 

It's been a talking point for 10-15yrs about how the Oscars are nominating films no one has seen, and while it's a fair criticism for the top contenders, expanding the best pic nominees has allowed the more popular pictures to be included in the conversation. Notably we have two 700m films this year.

But that expansion has not come without cost, which has allowed some laughably bad films to also be included. Enter this year's leading contender Emilia Perez - a film that I'm still not convinced isn't some elaborate joke.

Re: 2025 Academy Awards
 

And ironically, this also includes a chunk of the Academy members who votes on the films. It just adds to the list of reasons why these awards are nothing more than a self-congratulatory marketing campaign for the film industry.

Re: 2025 Academy Awards
 

It's not the Oscar Academy's fault that the major Hollywood studios can only manage to produce two or three high quality movies each year that are also box office hits.

In 2024, 22 movies earned over $100 million at the box office. Two of them (Dune 2, Wicked) are nominated for Best Picture Oscars, and two (Inside Out 2, Wild Robot) are nominated for Best Animated.

Of those 22 movies, 17 are franchise (sequel, prequel, reboot) projects.

This ain't rocket science. Hollywood does not make big "artistic merit" films any more, and people don't go to see the challenging and original movies that do get made.

Anora has been praised as one of the best films of 2024 for months. It has made $14 million. Bad Boys:Ride or Die made $193 million.

Re: 2025 Academy Awards
 

So what are some 2024 movies that lots of people have seen that you guys think should have been nominated? Because I look at the 2024 box office and I see mountains of garbage. And regardless of it's quality, Emilia Perez is probably one of the most seen nominees by virtue of it being on Netflix.

Edit: Yeah, and what Dooku said.

Re: 2025 Academy Awards
 

My statement came off wrong, and I understand why with my wording. By "elitist art film bullshit" I was not intending to direct that at the quality or style of the movies themselves, but rather the studios' practice of not releasing them for mass consumption. For example, of the 10 Best Picture noms: TWO had notable runs here, TWO had runs of less than two weeks; TWO played a few weeks (and played at bizarre times), TWO have not even played here yet, and the other two I don't have a clue what they even are. Granted, I know my local AMC sucks.

I really need to just start a spreadsheet tracking what my local theaters play over the course of the year. Maybe I am wrong.

Re: 2025 Academy Awards
 

Civil War

Thelma (not sure that lots of people saw it, though)

Re: 2025 Academy Awards
 

I get the frustration with not being able to see the movies, but anecdotally I think this year's group has been mostly accessible. Dune and Wicked obviously. Conclave and A Complete Unknown had big 2k+ theater runs. The Substance and Anora had decent releases given their size and then hung around for a while (particularly the Substance). Either way, both are available to rent digitally. Emilia Perez is Netflix. The Brutalist and Nickel Boys were both held for awards season and are only just now being rolled out to more theaters. I'm Still Here is the only outlier, a Brazilian film that hasn't been released yet. We'll see if it gets one.

All that said, the Academy isn't in charge of distribution. And most members likely live in LA where all of these movies have been released theatrically. Not to mention their access to screeners and "for your consideration" screenings. The movies are all readily available to them, and unless they work in distribution, would likely have no clue what movies people in anytown USA have or have not seen.

Civil War is a good answer, but it's only been a fringe awards contender, academy or otherwise. It also brings up the issue of studio campaigns. Civil War is A24, and A24 doesn't have unlimited resources. They have to pick and choose which movies they get behind come awards season. The Brutalist is obviously their big play this year, but stuff like The Heretic, Baby Girl, Queer and Sing Sing were also all higher on the awards totem pole than Civil War.

Yeah, no one saw that.

Re: 2025 Academy Awards
 

I would have thought Civil War would have been nominated in a few of the technical categories but didn't see any nominations.

Re: 2025 Academy Awards
 

I get most of my movie news from here. Did Emilia Perez even get a thread?

It is either criminally under marketed. Or it really hustled the politics of Hollywood to get the votes.

Re: 2025 Academy Awards
 

Alex Garland got a WGA nomination for Original Screenplay for Civil War, but a ton of films were ineligible for nominations due to WGA rules, including The Brutalist, The Substance and September 5, which all got Oscar nominations in the category.

Re: 2025 Academy Awards
 

rocket1312 Please stop with your rational and sensible answers on how these things actually work! :p

https://forum.dvdtalk.com/movie-talk...ram%EDrez.html

Re: 2025 Academy Awards
 

How much marketing does Netflix even do beyond putting new movies on the top of their home screen? More likely it just doesn't appeal to the demographic of this site. Emilia Perez did well at Cannes and has been a pretty well known quantity in film nerd circles since then.

Re: 2025 Academy Awards
 

I'd agree that it's simply an issue of the business. There is SO MUCH content for everyone to consume, just each year, that it's not unexpected that the awards polarize the nominees.

Add into the mix the death of the mid-budget movie (for the most part), the shift in "must see" quality films becoming "wait for streaming because it doesn't have action scenes", increasingly pursuing international markets at the cost of financing/promoting great scripts that cater to the Anglosphere, the sheer number of media that compete for attention, and cultural factors impacting what gets made and how it gets received...

Re: 2025 Academy Awards
 

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/dvdtalk...773ebc5225.jpg

Re: 2025 Academy Awards
 

I didn’t realize it’s Netflix. I actually dumped them around six or so months ago. I was spending $15 or whatever a month, and found myself watching 2-3 movies per year on there.

I just mentioned this in another thread. But it’s unfortunate that all of this passable, junk “content” on streaming buries the good stuff. It’s strange how there’s so many big, competent productions (movies and series) that I don’t have the least interest in. And I love movies, and it’s the most predominant hobby in my life. That’s why the industry is having problems.

Re: 2025 Academy Awards
 

You're raising two huge issues, both of which have major challenges:
Hollywood is first and foremost a business. Businesses ship content to be consumed. And, Hollywood is full of artists who create art to be enjoyed. The way "content" and "consume" slid into the vernacular to replace "create" and "enjoy" over the last few years has been disappointing.

A Real Pain is a good example. I didn't know about it until the day before it arrived on Hulu. I watched it that day and really enjoyed it. I think my whole family would enjoy it. Now, it's in the theater 5 minutes from our home for the first time. We have AMC A-List, so it would only cost a little bit to get two children's matinee tickets for our kids and go as a family, but why not stream it at home? I will say this: the theater has no phones, no get up to the kitchen, none of that. But when given the choice, it's tough to get the whole family to go, even though I know they'd like it. Will they all watch it at home? More success with that, yes.

Re: 2025 Academy Awards
 

Thanks, I didn't know this was on Netflix.

Re: 2025 Academy Awards
 

Yeah, we're churning out such ridiculous amounts of entertainment content... tv (broadcast, cable, streaming; scripted, reality), movies, music, video games, social media (TikTok, Youtube, facebook)... that is all competing for our limited fee time that it's frankly mind-boggling.

When everyone has a high-definition widescreen tv in their living rooms, going to the movies isn't much of a priority anymore -- especially when combined with the price of tickets and concessions put up against disruptive assholes in the audience ruining the experience -- I think most people are treating going to the movies like a concert or sporting event. They want to see things like science fiction/fantasy/superheroes, franchise entries, and big, dumb, loud action movies when they go out to the movies, not stuff like The Brutalist.

Re: 2025 Academy Awards
 

It is, and there is no way around that. However, it had traditionally been a relationship to finance art (and artists) and make some money for everybody involved.
Now, the money men do everything they can to sidestep the art in favor of cost saving content and bleed the system dry for maximum profit. That is the shame.

Re: 2025 Academy Awards
 

I remember a long time ago, Denzel Washington said that they call it "show business" but they should call it "business show." and then added, it would be really honest if they just called it "business business."

Re: 2025 Academy Awards
 

But I have to say, seeing this particular one on an IMAX screen was incredible. Can't get that at home.

Re: 2025 Academy Awards
 

The movie landscape just shifted and for my taste the quality of movies went down. Movies like The Lion King, Amistad, Wag The Dog, Jackie Brown, Boogie Nights, Leaving Las Vegas, Nixon, Dead Man Walking, The Usual Suspects, 12 Monkeys, Casino, Toy Story, Philadelphia, Malcolm X, Glengarry Glen Ross, Reversal of Fortunes, American History X, The Truman Show... did not get nominated for best picture and while there were only 5 best picture nominees back then, I have barely watched a handful of movies of this caliber in the last couple of years.