But Annie Hall was the better movie.
Yeah, Annie Hall gets a bum rap from SF fans. I mean, I get that some fans will never forgive it for beating Star Wars for Best Picture, but it's a fine film that was certainly worthy of its accolades. Its only crime, from what I can see, is not being an iconic SF movie.
Is it better or worse than Star Wars? Hard to say. We're talking apples and orange here.
Personally, I've always been impressed by both.
(For the record, I also thought Shakespeare in Love was a fine film, even though some folks will never forgive it for "stealing" Best Picture from Saving Private Ryan.)
Is it better or worse than Star Wars? Hard to say. We're talking apples and orange here.
Personally, I've always been impressed by both.
(For the record, I also thought Shakespeare in Love was a fine film, even though some folks will never forgive it for "stealing" Best Picture from Saving Private Ryan.)
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Check out the film Sorcerer.
Sorcerer (film) - Wikipedia
Star Wars did a number on that one too. Changed the industry.
Depending on the viewer's stance on separating art from artist, the director and star might also be a strike against it.
Nowadays maybe, but fans were grumping about Annie Hall beating SW long before Allen became seen as problematic. And even today, in SF groups at least, the big crime seems to that a blockbuster SF classic was beaten by a mainstream, semi-autobiographical rom-com . . . .
Horrors!
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If you want to dig into a film with questionable stuff going-on, I suggest looking up Rosemary's Baby.
Sorcerer is kind of an amazing film, which sadly bombed. It had a bad marketing campaign and a deceptive name (viewers thought it was something supernatural, which it wasn’t) so viewers went to “that space movie” that came out at the same time instead.Check out the film Sorcerer.
Sorcerer (film) - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Star Wars did a number on that one too. Changed the industry.
No, I get it. I was just saying it's not the only reason.
Given that it was hyped as coming from the director of The Exorcist, audience can probably be forgiven for expecting something supernatural . . . .
It's soundtrack was by Tangerine Dream, which also made folks think it was about the supernatural.
And all I'm saying is to wonder how a movie in which the principals are basically playing slightly-fictionalized versions of themselves, in a slightly-fictionalized version of their relationship, could be regarded as a bigger stretch for an actor than a movie wherein they must react to things they can't see or hear, because they're going to be added in post.
And to wonder why Hollywood has, for so many years, had such a strong prejudice against heroes, fictional or real (e.g., The Right Stuff, a movie in which eight genuine real-life heroes [Chuck Yeager and the Mercury Seven] are depicted "warts and all," and still come out looking like the heroes they were, getting beaten by Terms of Endearment).
And to wonder why Hollywood has, for so many years, had such a strong prejudice against heroes, fictional or real (e.g., The Right Stuff, a movie in which eight genuine real-life heroes [Chuck Yeager and the Mercury Seven] are depicted "warts and all," and still come out looking like the heroes they were, getting beaten by Terms of Endearment).
Terms of Bereavement. God, I hate that movie.
I don't know. For one thing, "Best Picture" does not mean "Movie with the Best Special-Effects Acting." By that standard, Godzilla vs the Smog Monster beats Lawrence of Arabia because the actors in the Godzilla movie are reacting to completely made-up stuff while Lawrence employed an actual cast of thousands on real locations. Plus, the actors in Lawrence were playing real people, not fictional characters, and the story was taken from history instead of being invented from whole cloth, which was clearly cheating.
Meanwhile, "Best Picture" does not necessarily mean "Most Heroic Picture." It's all about the whole picture: the execution, the craftsmanship, the writing and editing and acting and originality. Not just whether the protagonists are exemplary enough.
Vertigo, for example, is full of messed-up people making some very bad choices. Still a classic, though.
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My point is that playing a slightly-fictionalized version of yourself doesn't seem like much of a stretch. Not compared to special effects acting, and not compared to a really nice person playing the role of a complete asshole (whether a melodramatic villain or a realistic one), or a role that requires a large amount of screen time in non-camp drag, or any number of other formidable acting challenges. Filming microgravity scenes aboard a "vomit comet" would be a particularly difficult technical challenge. And likewise, if the most complex opticals in the whole picture are the title cards, that removes one more whole area in which a film can excel.
I think a lot of this has to do with an elitist view that contemporary realist and historical realist fiction are somehow "non-genre" fiction, and therefore inherently superior to "genre fiction" (rather than my view that they are genres in and of themselves, neither inherently better nor inherently worse than any other).
The late, great, Dr. Karl Haas, host of the long-running nationally-distributed (to both public and commercial classical stations) radio program Adventures in Good Music, declared that there are really only two kinds of music, good and bad, and those two categories have precisely nothig to do with the genre of a piece of music. I would say that this also applies to all forms of literature.
That said, I think it was entirely fair that Gandhi beat ET. They were both equally good, but Gandhi was arguably the more important of the two, and alas, Oscar does not have an award for "Most Important Picture."
I think a lot of this has to do with an elitist view that contemporary realist and historical realist fiction are somehow "non-genre" fiction, and therefore inherently superior to "genre fiction" (rather than my view that they are genres in and of themselves, neither inherently better nor inherently worse than any other).
The late, great, Dr. Karl Haas, host of the long-running nationally-distributed (to both public and commercial classical stations) radio program Adventures in Good Music, declared that there are really only two kinds of music, good and bad, and those two categories have precisely nothig to do with the genre of a piece of music. I would say that this also applies to all forms of literature.
That said, I think it was entirely fair that Gandhi beat ET. They were both equally good, but Gandhi was arguably the more important of the two, and alas, Oscar does not have an award for "Most Important Picture."
There is a lot of bad genre fiction. You're more likely to find better acting performances in non-genre, not because it's superior, but because the role often affords it. You're not going to get an Adrien Brody Brutalist performance in a Marvel film.
The problem is that genre fiction usually asks less of the actor. There are exceptions, but this mostly true. We're seeing more seasoned actors now in horror films today. Michael B. Jordan won this year. Horror winning is rare.
If you want to be blown away, I recommend checking out John Cassavates films. Woman Under the Influence is on HBO MAX. It's great. Again, you're not going to get that type of performance in genre fiction.
What is interesting though is that the actor from Agatha All Along gives it a great intro:
here's another good view of it:
This entire page of this thread so far has only been discussing movies. I would ask to please bring the thread back to the subject of mass market paperbacks. If you would like to discuss movies, we have the SF&F and TV&M forums for that. Thank you.
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