I’d never want to participate in a best/worst film of all time discussion because in the era of streaming I have the ability to see movies that I saw decades ago that disappeared from screens both big and small. There are films I thought were mind blowing years ago that I now see as trash and there are films I thought were boring years ago that I now think are brilliant.
When I got DVDs from Netflix years ago I got Argo after it won best picture and I realized what Academy voters consider a good movie has nothing to do with what I consider a good movie. To make this relevant to the thread, I heard the WTF interview with Guillermo Del Toro where they spent a lot of time talking about Nightmare Alley. I saw that Criterion Channel had the 1947 Edmund Goulding version (it’s gone now). I watched it and then I watched Cronos to get a sense of del Toro’s style. A week later the new Nightmare Alley turned up on Hulu so I watched it. It was by no means a bad movie but outside of budget and technology related improvements it wasn’t as good as the original. I was surprised to see it got nominated. On Sat, Mar 26, 2022 at 5:35 AM 'Dave Sikula' via TVorNotTV < [email protected]> wrote: > "Don't Look Up" is indeed terrible, but there have been lousy nominees > aplenty over the years. I actually kind of like "Greatest Show;" it's not > great, but once one gets a sense of DeMille's directing style (it's > especially apparent in "The Ten Commandments," in that he never stopped > directing silent pictures; he just added sound), it's tolerable. I've seen > a lot of worse pictures that were supposed to be "important." > > There are plenty of dogs that actually won. "Cimmaron" is generally ranked > among the worst, but it's just dull, not bad. For sheer lousiness, though, > it's hard to beat either "Cavalcade" or "How Green Was My Valley," though > I'll stipulate that I don't like that one because I can't stand John Ford > (especially "The Quiet Man"). > > As for McKay, the more films he does (and I liked "The Big Short"), the > more obvious and smaller his bag of tricks becomes. I'm thinking > particularly of "Don't Look Up," with its overripe "aren't we outrageous to > tell truth to power this way?" vibe, but also the atrocious "Winning Time," > about the Lakers. Too much talking to the camera, outright lies about > people and events, and ramping everything up to eleven. Farrell (who would > have been awful as Jerry Buss) should consider himself lucky that he got > edged out. > > --Dave Sikula > > On Friday, March 25, 2022 at 8:41:16 PM UTC-7 PGage wrote: > >> This is a much more difficult call than naming the best film ever >> nominated for Best Picture (obviously, The Godfather). I did a quick Google >> search and saw a lot of different nominees, some of which I thought were >> ridiculous (I really liked JoJo Rabbit). It’s hard to go back in time to >> judge just how bad old films were. I have seen “Greatest Show on Earth”, >> and it’s not good, but I’ve seen Ivanhoe too and it’s not clear to me it is >> that much better. Dr. Dolittle has been my go to worst Best Film nominee (I >> hated it even as a kid in the demo when it came out). More recent films in >> contention for me are Prince of Tides and Extremely Loud and Incredibly >> Close. >> >> But I finally got around to watching “Don’t Look Up” this evening and, >> wow, is it bad. It is basically a mediocre 4 min SNL sketch stretched to 2 >> hrs and 20 minutes. I don’t often agree with Sikula, but in this case he >> has been understated in his criticism. I write this as a huge fan of Vice >> and, especially “The Big Short”, which is one of my favorite films of the >> last 25 years. DLU may not be the worst film ever nominated for Best >> Picture, but if it’s not it is in the top three. >> >> I’m not that surprised the film stank; they took a big swing and whiffed. >> It happens. I think it would have been a lot better had they played it >> straight, as in Big Short, but it’s easy to say that after the fact. But I >> am shocked it got nominated. Why did that happen? Who thinks this is a >> great movie? Even if you thought it was sporadically amusing, like >> Anchorman II, you can’t really think it is good. I laughed at one joke, >> which paid off during the credits, and that might just have been relief >> that it was finally over. >> >> It strikes me that the thinking behind nominating this film is the same >> as that behind nominating other stinkers like Green Book, Blind Side and >> The Help. Lazy arm chair liberals mark it as somehow making a socially >> significant point, and they want to pat themselves on the back for getting >> behind it. >> >> >> On Sun, 26 Dec 2021 at 11:03 PM [email protected] >> >>> Let me just say that, after enduring the grisly "Don't Look Up" tonight, >>> I owe Mr. Sorkin an apology. McKay's effort (emphasis on the "effort") is >>> so inept as to make Sorkins' look like a 30's Paramount comedy. >>> >>> --Dave Sikula >>> >> -- >> Sent from Gmail Mobile >> > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "TVorNotTV" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/dcf3492d-05ac-4a37-966c-35695282c579n%40googlegroups.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/dcf3492d-05ac-4a37-966c-35695282c579n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. 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