The Film Lounge

[Good_Will_Harding]

Saving my final predictions for a certain glitzy awards show for posting tomorrow, but now I find myself dwelling on a snub that's already happened, with Michael Giacchino's score for The Batman not even being shortlisted for consideration. A fact now even more disappointing after Warnes Bro's has released a brief featurette on the score's creation, which features a more triumphant, fast paced variation on the theme than anything that's actually heard in the final film.



If modern film music composers can be anything close to overexposed, Giacchino has probably gotten there a few times, with him contributing to nearly every major American film franchise of the past fifteen to twenty years. And yet when he really delivers, he knocks it out of the park, and this bat flick features some of the best music he's written in quite some time.

[Good_Will_Harding]

Final predictions for a certain awards show announcing their nominations tomorrow:

Best Picture

All Quiet on the Western Front 
Avatar: The Way of Water
Elvis
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Tar
The Banshees of Inisherin
The Fablemans
The Whale
Top Gun: Maverick
Women Talking

Alternate: RRR

Best Director

Edward Berger, All Quiet on the Western Front
The Daniels, Everything Everywhere All At Once
Todd Field, Tar
Martin McDonagh, The Banshees of Inisherin
Steven Spielberg, The Fablemans

Alt: James Cameron, Avatar: The Way of Water

Best Actor

Austin Butler, Elvis
Colin Farrell, The Banshees of Inisherin
Brendan Fraser, The Whale
Paul Mescal, Aftersun
Bill Nighy, Living

Alt: Tom Cruise, Top Gun: Maverick

Best Actress

Cate Blanchett, Tar
Viola Davis, The Woman King
Danielle Deadwyler, Till
Michelle Williams, The Fabelmans
Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All At Once

Alt: Ana de Armas, Blonde

Best Supporting Actor

Paul Dano, The Fablemans
Brendan Gleeson, The Banshees of Inisherin
Judd Hirsch, The Fabelmans
Barry Keogan, The Banshees of Inisherin
Ke Huy Kwan Everything Everywhere All At Once

Alt: Bryan Tyree Henry, Causeway

Best Supporting Actress

Angela Bassett, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Hong Chau, The Whale
Kerry Condon, The Banshees of Inisherin
Jamie Lee Curtis, Everything Everywhere All At Once
Stephanie Hsu, Everything Everywhere All At Once

Alt: Jessie Buckley, Women Talking

Best Adapted Screenplay

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Living
She Said
The Whale
Women Talking

Alt: All Quiet on the Western Front

Best Original Screenplay

Aftersun
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Tar
The Banshees of Inisherin
The Fablemans

Alt: Triangle of Sadness

Best Animated Feature

Guilermo de Toro's Pinocchio
Marcel the Shell With Shoes On
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
Turning Red
Wendell & Wild

Alt: My Father's Dragon

Best Documentary Feature
All that Breathes
All the Beauty & Bloodshed
Descendant
Fire of Love
Moonage Daydream

Alt: Navalny

Best International Feature

All Quiet on the Western Front
Close
Decision to Leave
Holy Spider
Saint Omer

Alt: Argentina, 1985

Best Art Direction

Avatar: The Way of Water
Babylon
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Elvis
The Fabelmans

Alt: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

Best Cinematography

All Quiet on the Western Front
Avatar: The Way of Water
Babylon
The Fabelmans
Top Gun: Maverick

Alt: The Batman

Best Costume Design

Babylon
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Elvis
Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris
The Woman King

Alt: The Fabelmans

Best Editing

Babylon
Elvis
Everything Everywhere All At Once
The Fabelmans
Top Gun: Maverick

Alt: Avatar: The Way of Water

Best Makeup & Hairstyling

Babylon
Blonde
Elvis
The Batman
The Whale

Alt: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Best Original Score

Babylon
Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio
The Banshees of Inisherin
The Fabelmans
Women Talking

Alt: Avatar: The Way of Water

Best Original Song

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - "Life Me Up"
Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio - "Ciao Papa"
RRR - "Naatu Naatu"
Top Gun: Maverick - "Hold My Hand"
Where the Crawdads Sing - "Carolina"

Alt: Till, "Stand Up"

Best Sound

All Quiet on the Western Front
Avatar: The Way of Water
Babylon
Elvis
Top Gun: Maverick

Alt: The Batman

Best Visual Effects

Avatar: The Way of Water
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Nope
The Batman
Top Gun: Maverick

Alt: All Quiet on the Western Front

Abstaining from predicting the three short categories since I'm far less knowledgeable about the contenders for those.

[Torgo]

Final predictions for a certain awards show announcing their nominations tomorrow:

Best Picture

All Quiet on the Western Front 
Avatar: The Way of Water
Elvis
Everything Everywhere All at Once
RRR
Tar
The Banshees of Inisherin
The Fablemans
The Whale
Top Gun: Maverick
Women Talking

Alternate: RRR

What was your other alternate then?

[Good_Will_Harding]

Oof, my bad.

[outdoorcats]

Brian Tyree Henry! I called it!

Total nominations guessed: 79/105. Got hit pretty hard on cinematography, plus in general predicting way more nominations for Babylon. I dunno, I was really feeling the Oscars would just ignore the reviews and box office and "rescue" Chazelle and a Hollywood centric film, but I was wrong.

My breakdown:

Spoiler

Best Picture

8/10

Could have got 9 out of 10 if I didn't switch Women Talking for The Whale at the last minute.

Best Director

4/5

Best Actor

5/5

Best Actress

3/5

Best Supporting Actress

4/5

Best Supporting Actor

4/5

Best Original Screenplay

4/5

Best Adapted Screenplay

4/5

Best Documentary:

4/5

Best Animated Feature:

4/5

Best Foreign Film:

3/5

Best Cinematography:

1/5

Ooof!

Best Editing:

4/5

Production Design:

4/5

Costume Design:

4/5

Make-Up and Hairstyling:

4/5

Best Original Score:

4/5


Best Original Song:

3/5

Best Sound:

4/5

Best Visual Effects:

4/5

[Good_Will_Harding]

OK, moment of truth. Here be the nominees:

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/20 ... ds-insider

And then my very random, overlong list of takeaways...

Spoiler

- They really went all in for All Quiet on the Western Front - guess that Netflix money really does make a difference. And yet, still no directing nod, especially considering how it managed to break into several technical categories.
- A whopping sixteen first time acting nominees across all four categories, with the biggest snubs being Danielle Deadwyler and Paul Dano.
- Some curious screenplay misses, like Aftersun for Original and She Said for Adapted, the latter film being snubbed entirely this morning.
- Decision to Leave missed International Feature. That entire lineup is just rife with potential greatness that was overlooked, though I of course haven't seen all the current nominees.
- Best Cinematography is an absolute bloodbath. I had Avatar or Top Gun winning, but now who the heck even knows.
- As big of a film music buff as I am, the Original Score lineup is a bit underwhelming this year. I'll be rooting for John Williams even harder now.

And the worst snub of the morning, for my money...



This had me in a puddle of tears watching it in the cinema, and yet the Oscars think four interchangeable pop ballads played over the end credits of their respective films are more deserving ("Naatu Naatu" innocent)?

[Ebbywebby]

I thought the songs in "Pinocchio" were thoroughly horrible. But I agree that the Best Cinematography category has a lot of underdogs, and Decision to Leave missing a nomination also jumped out at me. Interesting observation about the 16 first-time acting nominees.

[outdoorcats]

OK, moment of truth. Here be the nominees:

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/20 ... ds-insider

And then my very random, overlong list of takeaways...

Spoiler

- They really went all in for All Quiet on the Western Front - guess that Netflix money really does make a difference. And yet, still no directing nod, especially considering how it managed to break into several technical categories.
- A whopping sixteen first time acting nominees across all four categories, with the biggest snubs being Danielle Deadwyler and Paul Dano.
- Some curious screenplay misses, like Aftersun for Original and She Said for Adapted, the latter film being snubbed entirely this morning.
- Decision to Leave missed International Feature. That entire lineup is just rife with potential greatness that was overlooked, though I of course haven't seen all the current nominees.
- Best Cinematography is an absolute bloodbath. I had Avatar or Top Gun winning, but now who the heck even knows.
- As big of a film music buff as I am, the Original Score lineup is a bit underwhelming this year. I'll be rooting for John Williams even harder now.

And the worst snub of the morning, for my money...



This had me in a puddle of tears watching it in the cinema, and yet the Oscars think four interchangeable pop ballads played over the end credits of their respective films are more deserving ("Naatu Naatu" innocent)?

-Not shocked about She Said at all, it just wasn't a film anyone loved or even liked that much, there was definitely a sense of quiet disappointment with it with how good/important it *should* have been, if that makes sense, and the screenplay was definitely a culprit.
-Even though I predicted Decision to Leave, I'm not necessarily stunned it didn't make it in. I'm more surprised the artsy EO made it in over more traditional Oscar fare like Cairo Conspiracy. (cool!)
-Paul Mescal!
-The Whale was recently considered the frontrunner for adapted screenplay, not even nominated, that was a surprise! (but if the opinions here on The Whale are fair, perhaps a welcome one)

[Silga]

I've only seen Blonde from 54 nominated films. So plenty to choose from for next month's challenge.

[St. Gloede]

Just noticed that all the best director noms were also best Best Original Screenplay nominations, with the exact same people nominated (only add-on being + Tony Kushner for The Fablemans). A little suspect almost, i.e. not being able to separate script, direction and well, best overall film, as all 5 are also nominated for best picture too.

Interestingly, only Avatar: The Way of Water is missing a screenplay nomination from the best picture camp, the other 3 are in the adapted screenplay category.

[Good_Will_Harding]

Some more takeaways.

- Three films released during the Spring and Summer (at least in the US) got Best Picture nods (could've been nearly half the lineup if RRR had kept up the momentum), which hopefully moving forward means that studios don't wait until the last five to six weeks of the year to release all their awards contenders at once. Probably not, but I can dream!
- Curious that Triangle of Sadness got in for Picture, Director, and Original Screenplay, yet missed out on the category that hit the most precursors (Dolly de Leon for Supporting Actress, which I would've preferred over the three it did get noms for).
- Mandy Walker becomes only the third woman ever to be nominated for Best Cinematography, for Elvis.
- Nope completely shut out, when it could've at least gotten in for Cinematography, Sound, or Visual Effects.
- Glass Onion repeats the Oscar success of its predecessor Knives Out, in that they both receive a single nomination, for their writing.
- Ireland's first International feature film nomination with The Quiet Girl. Generally good morning for Ireland overall, with Banshees of course but also Paul Mescal's leading actor nod.
- The music branch's love affair with Alexandre Desplat seems to have cooled down a bit. Third year in a row where he appeared to be a no-brainer for a nomination and wound up with nothing (Pinocchio this year, The Midnight Sky and The French Dispatch before). Maybe I shouldn't predict him for Barbie next year.
- Speaking of music, John Williams receives his 53rd nomination, not only making him the most nominated living person, but also now the oldest individual to be nominated in Academy Awards history, with his 91st birthday just a few weeks away.

[Ebbywebby]

I can't even picture Dolly de Leon's face anymore, which perhaps doesn't speak well for the vividness of her performance.

I was quite surprised that "Nope" was shut out. I enjoyed that film plenty, and I don't like much from contemporary Hollywood. Also surprised at all the love for "Triangle of Sadness," which I wanted to love and didn't. Gee, how do you express contempt for rich folks? Make them vomit for a half-hour of screen time. Subtle. "The Square" was the same for me -- I read the premise and thought, ooh, this is perfect subject matter for me. And then...ehh, it was "OK."

[Torgo]

how do you express contempt for rich folks? Make them vomit for a half-hour of screen time. Subtle.

Doesn't have to be. Sometimes being blunt and in the face is refreshing, especially if it's targeted at a rather stiff audience.

How unsubtly did the academy, again, snub women in the directing category, though?
I just read an article criticizing that Sarah Polley didn't get nominated for "Women Talking" and there were no nominations for the makers behind The Woman King and Aftersun either. Easy opportunity to give 3 women a chance.
.. so, 3 of the 5 (+1) men who got nominated instead deserved it LESS. Which ones to boot?

[St. Gloede]

This one you mean: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/oscars-d ... 9288657989 ?

Feels like it is written in bad faith rather than being genuine.

Is the author not aware of the ratio of women directing in Hollywood compared to men? (There is a mention of women working on big budgets at least further down). It is the number of women directors that is the issue, not nominations. Statistically, it is completely reasonable and fair that many years have no women nominees.

The opening paragraph is immediately dishonest and insulting as they think not being selected as one of the 5 best means they don't think the directors did a good job... What the hell? It is just a set of 5. Do they think the acedemy is saying no other directors were excellent?

They point out 5 women directors, 1 of which is for a documentary, another for an animated film, so really 3 that could be genuinely be expected to be considered. How many men could we think of that could have been reasonsbly/deservedly shortlisted?

I haven't seen Women Talking yet, but Polley is indeed a strong director. Charlotte Wells did excellent in her debut and she would not have been out of place, but then I'm stunned the film got nominations at all, as it is a rather small indie film from the UK. I'm sure However, plenty of men directed great films in 2022 as well, and I would not be surprised if we, looking at English language films, could not pick 5+ men to each woman, as sad and frustrating as that is in terms of gender equality behind the camera. Things are getting better, he'll, the fact that there are women in the conversation at all, and every year at that, is pretty unbelievable.

(Not the US, but: I read recently that Jane Arden's The Other Side of the Underneath was the only UK film by a woman (without a male co-director) released in theatres in the entirety of the 70s... That floored me to be honest as I would have expected the bloody 70s to be doing better than that, even the US was doing better at that point. Some countries like France and Germany have "always" been a little better, but the ratio is still terrible across the board.)

Until women actually make up a large percentage of US/English language directors this should be expected to happen and if people don't consider that reasonable they need to do a better job at explaining why.

[Torgo]

Working link to the Huff Post article: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/oscars-d ... 9288657989

And no, I meant another article (from German news magazine Der Spiegel), rather basic and including only footnoted paragraph in the later part of the text. Yet reading their coverage of films and award ceremonies in particular, I knew no comment would come without a hint to the elephantess in the room. They set their clocks to that matter.
But thanks for your input source anyway - since, obviously or not, my remark was also kinda bad-faithed, e.g.: sarcastic.

[St. Gloede]

Don't worry, I got the sarcasm.

I got some pretty positive numbers on women directors in the US btw.

Statista has dived into data they represent as being the overall number of movie directors working in the US, though their sources and additional information is behind a paywall they show incredible improvements: https://www.statista.com/statistics/696 ... or-gender/

The share of women directors with 2021 films was a shocking 21.8%, an all-time high, topping the all-time high in 2020 with 20.5%, which again topped the previous 2019 record of 15.1%. This is insane as the percentage each year from 2011 to 2016 varied between 4.5% and 7.7%.

Progress is happening a lot quicker than I expected, and maybe we actually can start expect to see women nominated every year very soon.

Looking at the top 250 films by domestic gross in 2022, 18% of the directors were women according to: https://womenintvfilm.sdsu.edu/research/

[Good_Will_Harding]

Some more random factoids on this year's nominees.

- Women Talking is the first film since A Serious Man to only receive nominations for Best Picture and its screenplay.
- The Avatar films became the third franchise to have its first two installments nominated for Best Picture, after The Godfather and The Lord of the Rings, and it's possible that Dune could become the fourth next year.
- On the opposite end of the sequel discussion, Top Gun: Maverick is the third sequel to get a BP nomination when its predecessor did not, after Toy Story 3 and Mad Max: Fury Road.
- With Avatar: The Way of Water and Top Gun: Maverick both getting BP nods, this marks the first time the two highest grossing films of the year were both nominated in the top category since 1982, when E.T. and Tootsie were both nominated.
- All Quiet on the Western Front has the second lowest budget of any Best Visual Effects nominee of the 21st century, after Ex Machina.
- Judd Hirsch's nomination for The Fabelmans comes 42 years after his nomination for Ordinary People, breaking Henry Fonda's 1940-1981 record for longest time gap between acting nominations.
- A Darren Aronofsky film has yet to land a nomination for its screenplay.
- The average Best Picture length this year is 2 hours and 23 minutes. And I thought last year's films were on the long side.

[St. Gloede]

I got interested in the distribution in other countries.

France

France was my first thought and they are indeed the leaders, at least quantity wise, in Europe. Here's an interesting source from 2017 looking at France in particular: https://womenandhollywood.com/research- ... ncreasing/

Some key facts:

France represents 36 percent of Europe’s women-helmed titles.

The CNC, the French Ministry of Culture department that produces and promotes French cinema, notes that 27 percent of French movies were directed or co-directed by women in 2017 compared to 20.8 percent in 2008.

Very impressive to see that France was where Hollywood is not in 2008.

Overall, 370 of Europe’s women-directed films were from France from 2012-17. That figure outshines Germany (242), the UK (87), Spain (82), and Italy (70). In terms of percentages, however, Scandinavia has France beat. In the specified time period, 24.2 percent of French films were directed by women. Nearly 28 percent of Norwegian films, 25.4 percent of Finnish films, and 25 percent of Danish films were from female directors.

Norway topped the list of women directors in 2017! Not bad at all.

Statistics from 2011 to 2020: https://www.statista.com/statistics/122 ... er-france/

Here we see that France has actually been fairly steady throughout the 10s and not particularly improved. The best year was 2017 with 25.5%, and it has been around 21-25% both before and since, though you could say the the trend is a slow positive growth, with the early years of the 10s resting around 21-23% and the latter years being 23-25%.


Germany

Germany was listed as producing the 2nd most films by women in Europe in the 2017 article above, and that is not a big surprise as when you look at key women directors through history, after France, the runner-up has to be Germany and in terms of women directors working today there are so many exciting names.

The Freshest data I could find here is from 2019 as the numbers are not present on Statista: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/mij/150318 ... w=fulltext

The highlight from this look is that even more so than France the numbers have been stagnant with 22% of films directed by women (on their own, not in a mixed gender team) in both the 2009–2013 period and the 2016–2018.

Canada

Going outside of Europe I decided to check Canada, the stereotypically more progressive neighbour of the US to the North, and indeed they have done better.

Surprisingly the Data here is even less Fresh than France and Germany but in 2016 we see that 16% of Canadian films were made by women: https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/r ... -1.3839008

Telefilm has reached 50% women directors when looking at the films they fund (2021) but I can't find an easy reference to the overall percentage in Canada: https://telefilm.ca/en/telefilm-canada- ... roductions

Brazil

Brazil is a very odd country statistically as they went from 28% women in 2015 to 9% in 2016: https://www.statista.com/statistics/723 ... en-brazil/

Brazil was doing much better than the US however, with 15% of all films made between 2001 and 2010 being made by women: https://revistapesquisa.fapesp.br/en/womens-cinema/

Old, but data for a few other countries from the above source:

In 2014, a study commissioned by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Media (USA) and conducted by the University of Southern California in 11 countries revealed that, in China, 16.7% of films were directed by women; in Australia, 8.3% of films were female led.

China

Seeing that China already had 16.7% of their films directed by women in 2014 made me interested in how this has developed since.

Frustratingly I can't find any data except that women directed 3 of the 10 highest grossing films in 2018, so if anyone has sources to share here, please do.

[Torgo]

I was in no need for a third Birdemic movie (the sequel sucked hard since it tried being bad so shamelessly), but I'll have to give them credit for this amazing film poster

[magnusbernhardsen]

Most boring list of all time?
Empire: The 100 Best Movies Of All Time
https://www.empireonline.com/movies/fea ... -movies-2/

[St. Gloede]

Most boring list of all time?
Empire: The 100 Best Movies Of All Time
https://www.empireonline.com/movies/fea ... -movies-2/

14 of the top 25 are sci-fi films.

The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring is the best film of all-time.

Almost every film in the top 30 is in the action-adventure-thriller territory.

The Godfather is the oldest film in the top 30, and there are only 11 films made before the 60s, with only two made before the 50s and nothing from the 30s or the silent era, not even The Wizard of Oz, which topped the Variety list.

Only 7 films not from an English speaking country made the cut, and of these, two are often viewed in English (GBU and Spirited Away)

And here's the kicker, that's the same number of films as Marvel got on the list.

Not boring at all honestly, pretty unexpected, and for the audience it might actually be quite spot on while driving their readers to explore outside their comfort zone.

[Torgo]

Parasite ranks crazy high when you look at the rest of the list and its nature. Also Eternal Sunshine
Moonlight comes off just as surprising, if not more

[gromit82]

Last year, and in previous years, the Academy made some additional information about the nominations available to the public. I'm referring to the Nominations Fact Sheet (see https://web.archive.org/web/20220211193 ... tsheet.pdf ) which goes something like this:

Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role:
Javier Bardem (“Desi Arnaz” in Being the Ricardos) - This is his fourth nomination and third in this category. He was nominated for his leading roles in Before Night Falls (2000) and Biutiful (2010) and won an Oscar for his supporting role in No Country for Old Men (2007).

And also the nominations announcement (see https://web.archive.org/web/20220211193 ... cement.pdf ) which doesn't just list the nominations by category, but also by film.

This year, however, if that information is available at all, it might be reserved for press only at https://press.oscars.org/ (not available to the general public).

Does anyone know if these items are out there this year?

[cinewest]

I got interested in the distribution in other countries.

France

France was my first thought and they are indeed the leaders, at least quantity wise, in Europe. Here's an interesting source from 2017 looking at France in particular: https://womenandhollywood.com/research- ... ncreasing/

Some key facts:

France represents 36 percent of Europe’s women-helmed titles.

The CNC, the French Ministry of Culture department that produces and promotes French cinema, notes that 27 percent of French movies were directed or co-directed by women in 2017 compared to 20.8 percent in 2008.

Very impressive to see that France was where Hollywood is not in 2008.

Overall, 370 of Europe’s women-directed films were from France from 2012-17. That figure outshines Germany (242), the UK (87), Spain (82), and Italy (70). In terms of percentages, however, Scandinavia has France beat. In the specified time period, 24.2 percent of French films were directed by women. Nearly 28 percent of Norwegian films, 25.4 percent of Finnish films, and 25 percent of Danish films were from female directors.

Norway topped the list of women directors in 2017! Not bad at all.

Statistics from 2011 to 2020: https://www.statista.com/statistics/122 ... er-france/

Here we see that France has actually been fairly steady throughout the 10s and not particularly improved. The best year was 2017 with 25.5%, and it has been around 21-25% both before and since, though you could say the the trend is a slow positive growth, with the early years of the 10s resting around 21-23% and the latter years being 23-25%.


Germany

Germany was listed as producing the 2nd most films by women in Europe in the 2017 article above, and that is not a big surprise as when you look at key women directors through history, after France, the runner-up has to be Germany and in terms of women directors working today there are so many exciting names.

The Freshest data I could find here is from 2019 as the numbers are not present on Statista: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/mij/150318 ... w=fulltext

The highlight from this look is that even more so than France the numbers have been stagnant with 22% of films directed by women (on their own, not in a mixed gender team) in both the 2009–2013 period and the 2016–2018.

Canada

Going outside of Europe I decided to check Canada, the stereotypically more progressive neighbour of the US to the North, and indeed they have done better.

Surprisingly the Data here is even less Fresh than France and Germany but in 2016 we see that 16% of Canadian films were made by women: https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/r ... -1.3839008

Telefilm has reached 50% women directors when looking at the films they fund (2021) but I can't find an easy reference to the overall percentage in Canada: https://telefilm.ca/en/telefilm-canada- ... roductions

Brazil

Brazil is a very odd country statistically as they went from 28% women in 2015 to 9% in 2016: https://www.statista.com/statistics/723 ... en-brazil/

Brazil was doing much better than the US however, with 15% of all films made between 2001 and 2010 being made by women: https://revistapesquisa.fapesp.br/en/womens-cinema/

Old, but data for a few other countries from the above source:

In 2014, a study commissioned by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Media (USA) and conducted by the University of Southern California in 11 countries revealed that, in China, 16.7% of films were directed by women; in Australia, 8.3% of films were female led.

China

Seeing that China already had 16.7% of their films directed by women in 2014 made me interested in how this has developed since.

Frustratingly I can't find any data except that women directed 3 of the 10 highest grossing films in 2018, so if anyone has sources to share here, please do.

The growth among the percentage of women filmmakers around the world reminds me a bit of the increase among women writers (another male dominated medium) half a century ago, and while I believe this enriches cinema much the way international diversity does, I also think that modifying the film canon in a way that reflects present day numbers rather than historical ones brings no credibility or honor to it (yeah, I'm reopening that discussion again).

As a student of literature and creative writing, I was thrilled to read more and more diverse voices (including more women) in the 1970's and 80's, but also pretty upset when time honored classics were suddenly cast aside and replaced by compensatory titles that were "politically correct" but not on a comparatively equal artistically. As a champion of diversity, what went down ended up making me very uncomfortable, particularly as it has lead to a polarization of viewpoints that have yet to find a reasonable place to meet.

[St. Gloede]

The growth among the percentage of women filmmakers around the world reminds me a bit of the increase among women writers (another male dominated medium) half a century ago, and while I believe this enriches cinema much the way international diversity does, I also think that modifying the film canon in a way that reflects present day numbers rather than historical ones brings no credibility or honor to it (yeah, I'm reopening that discussion again).

I don't think that's a debate. Surely everyone would agree.

(Except people unaware of historical statistics, and possibly that writer from Huffpost )

[Lakigigar]

Some more random factoids on this year's nominees.

- A Darren Aronofsky film has yet to land a nomination for its screenplay.

Makes sense, Aronofsky's film aren't exactly great because of their... script.

Except for The Wrestler. That one was underrated at the time of the Oscars, in what actually was a terrible year for the Academy Awards.





Like lol.

Here, he definitely was stolen from at least 2 nominations.

[kongs_speech]

Some more random factoids on this year's nominees.

- A Darren Aronofsky film has yet to land a nomination for its screenplay.

Makes sense, Aronofsky's film aren't exactly great because of their... script.

Except for The Wrestler. That one was underrated at the time of the Oscars, in what actually was a terrible year for the Academy Awards.





Like lol.

Here, he definitely was stolen from at least 2 nominations.

The Wrestler didn't come out that year.

[Ebbywebby]

The Wrestler didn't come out that year.

[Good_Will_Harding]

Good News: Iranian film director Jafar Panahi has been released from prison, following months of unlawful detention. This came after he announced he will go on dry hunger strike 48 hours ago.

https://deadline.com/2023/02/jafar-pana ... 235248888/

[kongs_speech]

Good News: Iranian film director Jafar Panahi has been released from prison, following months of unlawful detention. This came after he announced he will go on dry hunger strike 48 hours ago.

https://deadline.com/2023/02/jafar-pana ... 235248888/

Wooo!!!! Panahi is a genuine hero. No one has put their life on the line more for cinema and the ability to tell the truth.

[pitchorneirda]

Great news but I'm still worried about Rasoulof

[beavis]

A very interesting exposition centered on Central Asia just started at EYE in Amsterdam. I am curious how the film program surrounding it will take shape, but some of the more special events have been announced now, including this discussion between Saodat Ismailova, the Uzbek artist that is the focus, and legendary Uzbek director Ali Khamraev that is sceduled in March!

https://www.eyefilm.nl/en/whats-on/uzbe ... aev/876127

https://www.eyefilm.nl/en/programme/sao ... ova/841392

[Ebbywebby]

Random question: I thought "Singapore Sling" (1990) was a check and it isn't. I thought it was on the 366 Weird list. Anyone recall which o-list it used to be on?

[peeptoad]

Random question: I thought "Singapore Sling" (1990) was a check and it isn't. I thought it was on the 366 Weird list. Anyone recall which o-list it used to be on?

It may have been on 366 at some point...?
https://366weirdmovies.com/3-singapore-sling-1990/

[Torgo]

Nah, that's just "APOCRYPHALLY WEIRD", where the 366-list continued after their arbitrary number was reached. Mods considered discussing adopting this at one point (e.g. just enhancing the 366-list, comparably to The New Cult Canon), we'll see if anything will happen with that

[peeptoad]

Aha... I seeeee.
Perhaps it was on TSZDT then (or not). It probably deserves to be over some on that list.

[Good_Will_Harding]

Celebrating John Williams' 91st birthday today by reminding you all that the music video for 'Duel of the Fates' from his The Phantom Menace score spent 11 days on MTV’s TRL Countdown.

[Torgo]

Perfect



Also, for a change: shame on Disney

[kongs_speech]

Perfect



Also, for a change: shame on Disney

I swear to fucking God, if they don't give Elsa a girlfriend this time either ...

_{Let Toy Story die already ffs.}

[Ebbywebby]

Toy Story FIVE? Oh man. Let it die.