Better hope the vengeful ghost of Alex Trebek doesn't take note of a former "Jeopardy!" champion calling "How Green Was My Valley" lousy. (I have no opinion about it, because I haven't seen it... in fact, all I really know about it is that Alex always said it was his favorite film.)
> On Mar 26, 2022, at 2:35 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] > <applewebdata://97438364-B439-4CC6-834F-A260EA52C839> > 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] > <mailto:[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]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/2A0D5C48-6D84-46A7-9451-C38DB4DD0A75%40ellwanger.tv.
