The Mexicans (or Mexican-Americans) I know in Los Angeles largely thought it was a good movie but if you live in Mexico City, you might know better.
Film Oscars 2025
- Thread starter Salt Bailly
- Start date
The Mexicans (or Mexican-Americans) I know in Los Angeles largely thought it was a good movie but if you live in Mexico City, you might know better.
My reply is related to the review bombing on IMDB which is mostly coming from Mexicans.
Do you have a source for that?
Fair enough. If that's accurate, and not something that could be easily manipulated, then I stand corrected.
American Beauty did not age well. It's problematic (the Kevin Spacey - Mena Suvari relationship) and seems to think a 40 year old going through a midlife crisis and trying to bang his high school daughter's friend is good character development. Then the neighbor kid with the video camera and his dad's homophobia, and the gay neighbors, and Spacey getting a job as a fry cook, etc. It's really a pretty bad movie.
I'm not really talking about movies that lost out to better movies (for which you basically could argue that it happens every year if you want). I'm more just talking about the general reception of a film. Not a single aggregated score that I've seen shows that Emilia Perez is a well liked film, and it's not even particularly well reviewed. I know voting for Academy Awards (at least for Best Picture) favors movies that gets many standout votes (or at least used to do that). This could explain why it shows up everywhere, but other than that I can't really explain it as it just seems that it's not generally well liked by just about any metric. And that obviously makes it polarizing.
I don't think most of those you mention (apart from Crash and Green Book) are that polarizing. They're pretty much across the board well liked movies. Even Crash and Green Book, that certainly have a lot of critics and are quite controversial picks in that regard, are on an aggregated level fairly well liked movies. Emilia Perez just doesn't seem to be in any way, that's why I'm a bit surprised it got that many nominations.
I’m very surprised. I think there was some last minute flipping a “V” to the Trumpers with voting for a movie starring a transgender actress. It will probably get wiped out at the Oscars because the protest nomination already sent the message.
I’m accepting already that Demi Moore wins Best Actress, maybe it gets Cinematography? Editing? When a musical is a big crossover it’s something like Chicago or Wicked, this isn’t even one for musical theater nerds.
I think the imagery in Emilia Perez lends itself to an insane trailer. I was excited to see it based on the trailer, but the film itself didn’t live up to the expectations.
This is all portrayed as bad/problematic in the movie itself.
I wouldn't say its "good" or that the movie portrayed that as a good thing, in fact I'd say the contrary. It was a somewhat honest and realistic situation that does happen sometimes. I knew then and I know now cases pretty close to depicted in the movie - a 40-something parent having an affair with a friend/classmate of their offspring (the cases I personally know the friends were all over 18 though under 25). I never thought the movie was endorsing that or portraying it as good, just that it happens and when it does happen, people in the social circle that hear about tend to want to know details. It's a bit like Lolita. I don't think Nabokov is ever endorsing Humbert or presenting it as good, but it is a story that is interesting.
That makes sense. But I’d add that the filmmakers themselves not only let/force the audience see Suvari strip down to her knickers but also they use her naked torso as the poster art for the film. It’s a little bit like saying Pretty Baby isn’t endorsing child prostitution while at the same time having to show a naked 12 year old Brooke Shields, you know, for authenticity. American Beauty wasn’t a mediation like Lolita on an obsession, in my view, it was a very male oriented spin on getting out of a listless marriage and career.
You could very well be right though. I just didn’t like the movie.
Pretty poor considering the last 20 years of film
I really liked some of these (Slumdog, Departed, No Country, CODA, Spotlight, EEAAO) and I appreciate others without feeling really jazzed (Oppenheimer, Argo) but it is an oddly unexciting bunch. Some were outright bad. Compare that to 1970-1984 when when we were getting Apocalypse Now, Five Easy Pieces, Midnight Cowboy, Patton, Godfather, French Connection, Chinatown, Taxi Driver, Cuckoo’s Nest, Cries And Whispers, The Conversation, Dog Day Afternoon, Barry Lyndon, Network, Deer Hunter, All That Jazz, Star Wars… holy effing shit. Something is missing!
Pretty poor considering the last 20 years of film
Most of those didn't win Best Picture though. First half of 70s was obviously very strong in terms of BP winners (French Connection, Godfather, Godfather Part 2, Cuckoo's Nest) but then it's not exactly brilliant picks every year, with stuff like Rocky, Annie Hall, Ordinary People, Chariots of Fire and Terms of Endearment winning.
You heartless automaton. Rocky is the quintessential crowd pleasing underdog tale. Annie Hall is great. Ordinary People was a cerebral film with great performances from all three leads (Sutherland, Moore, Hutton). Chariots Of Fire perfected the formula for boring-ass English movies about English people being English in heroically English ways. My wife loves, loves, LOVES this kind of movie. We joke about it. If it's got an English person making tea, she's in. And Terms Of Endearment kinda sucked ass except for Nicholson.
Apart from Chariots of Fire they're all good to great films as far as I am concerned. It's not that they're bad, not at all, it's just that they're not considerably better (or better at all) than the counterparts from later years.
Last edited:
From the last 10 I only enjoyed Parasite and Oppenheimer, rest were just boring or pretty bad.
Pretty poor considering the last 20 years of film
From the older 10, most were good, some were great.
Shows how the movie industry went downhill.
Not particularly, unless you believe what the Academy nominates and rewards is representative of the movie industry (it isn't).
It just shows you don't like what has won Best Picture in the past 10 years. Nothing more really.
For me the best ones are The Departed, No Country, Parasite and Oppenheimer. The worst ones are Crash, Birdman and Slumdog. Otherwise they're generally good to very good.
Christ, I forgot Million Dollar Baby won best picture... that film is trash.
Apart from the obvious ones (Crash, Birdman etc.) Spotlight was also pretty bad... I never got the huge praise for Hurt Locker either.
Apart from the obvious ones (Crash, Birdman etc.) Spotlight was also pretty bad... I never got the huge praise for Hurt Locker either.
Pretty poor considering the last 20 years of film
A lot of people don't even consider The Departed as one of Scorsese's top 3/top 5 (not my case), but it is easily top 3 in this sample.
The immediate 10-11 years prior include The Schindler's list, Forrest Gump, Braveheart, The English Patient, Titanic, Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind and LOTR. Most of them great or at least iconic.
Pretty poor considering the last 20 years of film
I have not seen 6 of them: Crash, The Hurt Locker, The Artist, Argo, Coda and Nomadland. Are any of them actually worth a watch? Keep in mind that I find most of the other films mediocre and not worth a watch.
Parasite is miles ahead of the other films that I've seen from that list. That's really the only great film on there in my opinion.
Oppenheimer 9/10
Pretty poor considering the last 20 years of film
EEAAO 6/10
CODA 3/10
Nomadland 5/10
Parasite 9/10
Green Book 6/10
Shape of water 6/10
Moonlight 5/10
Spotlight 6/10
Birdman 8/10
12 years 7/10
Argo 7/10
The artist not seen
Kings speech 7.5/10
Hurt Locker 5/10
Slumdog 8/10
No country 9.5/10
Departed 8.5/10
Crash 7/10
Million dollar baby 6/10
Crash politics are so insanely bad that it might be worth watching. The Artist is a gimmicky silent film. I did recently tried to watch Nomadland but quit after 40 minutes as it’s pretty dull.
If you don't like most of the winners I'd skip those. Most of them are well made films, but they aren't spectacular. Personally I like Argo and CODA quite a bit.
I think worth to mention in general in this context is that the Academy has tended to award smaller films in the past 15 years. I'd think at least stuff like Avatar, La La Land and The Revenant (perhaps even Gravity) would have won in prior times if they were released to as much success.
Last edited:
For me, that era you mentioned was a nadir of Best Pictures. I'd rate Departed, No Country, Argo, Slumdog, and 12 Years as all better than any of the ones you mentioned there.
CODA is a nice, heartfelt film carried by good performances, it's a decent watch. Nomadland is my favourite of those, I like that director's approach to her subject matter (well, I didn't see her Marvel film though), Frances McDormand is always eminently watchable and the cast (lots of them being "non" actors) is good and gives realism to it all. It's not particularly entertaining and I get Sweet Square's point that it can come across as dull, but I think it's quite an accomplished film.
Crash is an absolutely disgusting film, and just for the mere fact it was not only greenlit, made but then also garnered critical and public acclaim, it's quite fascinating. But it's like watching the moral equivalent to 2 girls 1 cup, for 2 hours. It's morbidly compelling, from a meta perspective.
The article includes some insane right wing bigoted tweets from Gascón.
Moonlight a 5 outta 10... wow
If you look at some of the tweets, it's some of the most racist shit I have ever read. Crazy.
Won’t post it but people have found more insane racist tweets and now also anti vaccine tweets as well from her.
totally unrelated, but I can hear this in his voice. Damn I missed Andre Braugher. Rest In Peace King
Pretty poor considering the last 20 years of film
The Departed is the most outrageous one there
it’s so funny but also kinda fitting that audiard cast her.