Finally caught up with The Shape of water. Wish I could have liked it more, but I'm afraid my soul is dead. Either that or I find it very easy to resist films with a fable-like quality, particularly if (and Pan's Labyrinth had the same effect) the villain is so irremediably, mustache twirling villainous, and our heroes so naively, sweetly good. Never felt like I was receiving any insight into the actual human condition, which is pretty much what I look for in a fulfilling tale, except in rare sidelong glances. That said, the cast is great, Sallie Hawkins and Richard Jenkins being a couple of my favorites, and it's very impressive visually. Octavia Spencer is sadly misused (I think they just lifted her part from another one of her films), and the guy who plays her husband probably ought to sue. Every character is more just an idea of an aspect of a person really, rather than a fully developed character.

But the plot has more propulsion than I might have hoped for, and the visuals are outstanding. Still glad I saw it, but kind of meh overall.

Makes for a total of four Best Picture nominees I've seen. Maybe I can grab one more before the telecast.

My ranking would be:

Three Billboards
Lady Bird (very close second)
Shape of Water
Get Out

swishnicholson wrote:

1 wrote:https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/paddington_2/

In addition to several first-hand accounts.

Yeah, the Paddingtom movies are supposed to be very good.


People are up in arms about a scene in Peter Rabbit that makes light of food allergies.

It does sound execrable, but then the whole tale is based the the father being killed, skinned and turned into a meat pie.

Read about this because of your post.

People will get mad at anything. Also, isnt McGregor the villain in the story? If we can't use the food allergies of our villain against them then I do not want to live in this world.

Hopefully no kid slips a peanut into a bully's sandwich because Paddington taught them to do it.

Did he learn that from Peter Rabbit?

Monkeyboy wrote:Hopefully no kid slips a peanut into a bully's sandwich because Paddington taught them to do it.

there are all kinds of urban legends about lunch ingredients made to punish lunch thieves out there on ye old internet.

thephan wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:Hopefully no kid slips a peanut into a bully's sandwich because Paddington taught them to do it.

there are all kinds of urban legends about lunch ingredients made to punish lunch thieves out there on ye old internet.

Mrs. Doubtfire poisoned his ex-wife's boyfriend and people thought it was funny.

Rush Hour 4 is a go for some reason

Watching previews the last time at the theater made wonder if Rampage with The Rock is perhaps going to be the worst movie ever, and why Jennifer Lawrence, who I presume is shown every single script out there, chose the one where she had to do a horrible Russian accent (along with the rest of the cast. though Russian isn't exactly accurate. The accents are literally all over the map.)

1 wrote:Did he learn that from Peter Rabbit?

Rabbits, bears, they're all the same furry, lactating thing.

Lady Bird was quite good

I thought I, Tonya was fun, entertaining, and did succeed in putting some moral ambiguity into the mix, but I was pretty disappointed right off the bat that is was done in the mockumentary style and spans her whole life. I feel like that put such a cap on the whole project as opposed to picking a focused narrative thread and actually writing and acting some pathos into it. maybe I should have seen that coming, but I didn't

Paddington 2 was great. I want to see it several more times. Never saw the first one though

I didn't think I'd be upset if Shape of Water won, but here I am.

Was hoping 3 Billboards would win

Titlehungry wrote:Was hoping 3 Billboards would win

Saw this on Saturday night. I was the only Oscar nominated movie that I saw this year and I agree that it should have won.

Houshphandzadeh wrote:Lady Bird was quite good

I thought I, Tonya was fun, entertaining, and did succeed in putting some moral ambiguity into the mix, but I was pretty disappointed right off the bat that is was done in the mockumentary style and spans her whole life. I feel like that put such a cap on the whole project as opposed to picking a focused narrative thread and actually writing and acting some pathos into it. maybe I should have seen that coming, but I didn't

Good critique on I, Tonya. I did not think of it much at the time, but I agree with your assessment. The non-interview scenes were the better parts of the movie too.

I'm really surprised Wind River wasn't a headliner, on merit and in this political climate

Phred wrote:

Titlehungry wrote:Was hoping 3 Billboards would win

Saw this on Saturday night. I was the only Oscar nominated movie that I saw this year and I agree that it should have won.

As mentioned elsewhere, this was my favorite as well. Still, Shape of Water was an imaginatively conceived and fantastically constructed film with a lot of good people taking part, and worthy of the award.

Would really have only been bummed if Get Out had won, as it suffered from the the same two (sometimes one) -dimensional characters as Water, but didn't have anything like the visual style (though I still enjoyed it). I guess The Post or Darkest Hour would have been pretty meh, too. Anything else would have been fine, I think, though I didn't see them all.

I watched Get Out again today. A lot better on the second viewing. Moved it from a 7 to a 9.

i really liked baby driver

The Dude wrote:i really liked baby driver

Defend the final third of that movie