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2020-01-09, 07:29 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2015
Superhero Movies Are More Than Just Flashy Special Effects
Every year in the Oscars superhero movies like the Avengers movie franchise always get nominated for special effects. Oscars always turn a blind eye to see the worthiness for getting nominated for any other categories. Superhero movies are more than just flashy special. It has a wonderful storyline. Great actors and actresses. Great directors and directing. I mean for the love of Hulk, Iron Man just sacrificed his life and died in Avengers: Endgame, this couldn't get any more Oscar-worthy than that. What do you think about this topic?
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2020-01-09, 08:35 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Superhero Movies Are More Than Just Flashy Special Effects
The criteria the Oscar judges tend to look for in their nominations are different than yours. Fantasy and action movies rarely get acknowledged in Best Picture, and while Endgame is a fine movie that I quite like... it doesn't do anything transcendent within genre movies.
Predominantly the Oscars favour straight dramas which attempt to tackle deeper themes and are usually put forth by auteur film-makers with distinct styles rather than expensive blockbusters. This is why they wanted to include a "popular film" category as it would entail movies the common rabble will likely have seen that year and thus give them a point of investment... but, well, it wasn't well received.
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2020-01-09, 08:40 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2015
Re: Superhero Movies Are More Than Just Flashy Special Effects
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2020-01-09, 08:54 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2012
Re: Superhero Movies Are More Than Just Flashy Special Effects
Black Panther did tackle weightier themes - straight on - and is far more auteur than most Superhero movies. It was also in the shadow of controversy regarding the Oscars and racial politics, which probably effected some of that decision.
Endgame does things well, but it's just another big-budgeted action movie at the end of the day. It certainly wasn't made with the intent of trying for an Oscar, just to make money and push the Marvel story and brand further.
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2020-01-09, 08:58 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Superhero Movies Are More Than Just Flashy Special Effects
Last edited by Bartmanhomer; 2020-01-09 at 08:58 PM.
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2020-01-09, 11:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Superhero Movies Are More Than Just Flashy Special Effects
So the thing about Black Panther is this, and ahead are spoilers for Black Panther so tread carefully those who haven't seen:
SpoilerBlank Panther is a pretty good action film for the first 40 minutes of runtime. Then it hits its weightier themes and gives development and resonance to Killmonger that's incredibly good. Then... it becomes a generic action flick.
There are a lot of tremendous things done in Black Panther, a great many of them in the production design - I remarked when I left that it felt like it was calling back to a lineage of Afrofuturist mainstream films that don't actually exist, it was that confident with what it presented. There are also some truly weak elements, particularly W'Kabi's defection - a deleted scene "explains" it in a way that just shows how truly hollow it was.
It is a good movie, and I hope it'll spur more productions to be so ambitious and recognize the untapped potential of the artists who brought it to life and those waiting in the wings for their shot. It's not Best Picture.
Now mind you, many of the films that the Oscars choose to honor aren't, particularly. A notable thing happened beginning with the 82nd Academy Awards in 2009, and it's because of what they messed up the year prior: Best Picture expanded beyond five nominees. This was driven by two notable snubs in the same year: WALL-E, which was a critical darling well-received by audiences, and The Dark Knight, which... likewise. That year, the slate of nominees was Slumdog Millionaire, Benjamin Button, Milk, Frost/Nixon, and The Reader. I really enjoyed Frost/Nixon. I didn't enjoy it more than The Dark Knight or WALL-E.
So they expanded the slate and made sure to include "popular" films, which is how you end up with the following. Note "traditional" nominees are in bold.
Spoiler: 2009 The Hurt Locker (winner)
The Blind Side
Avatar (borderline, but a big effects-driven Dances With Wolves does hit some buttons)
District 9
An Education
Inglourious Basterds
Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' bu Sapphire
A Serious Man
Up
Up in the Air
Spoiler: 2010 The King's Speech (winner)
127 Hours
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter's Bone
Spoiler: 2011 The Artist (winner)
The Descendants
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
The Help
Hugo
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball
The Tree of Life
War Horse
Spoiler: 2012 Argo (winner)
Amour
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty
You can see they started to close ranks pretty much immediately, because studios lobby for Best Picture with their little prestige films nobody went to see. They lobby super hard for the nominations. The impact of individual films is thinned. Compare the field in 1994:
Spoiler: 1994 Forrest Gump (winner)
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Pulp Fiction
Quiz Show
The Shawshank Redemption
The winner is easily from the bottom two of that field, and is still an impactful film. Quiz Show is likely the least known of the five, and is still a tremendous and interesting story and classic Oscar-type film. The Shawshank Redemption is the best film to get jilted for all kinds of big awards - it's unreal how hard it was shut out considering how good it is. Pulp Fiction is of course Tarantino at peak Tarantino.
So the Oscars have drifted away from "best movie" to "best Oscar-type movie" and went through a flirtation with lying about it, the product of which is Black Panther getting a nomination for an award it never had a chance of winning, because the producers fear loss of audience share and relevance. All that being said, neither Black Panther nor Avengers: Endgame was the best movie of its year. They were movies that came with a big impact, to be sure, but Endgame is a greatest hits album that asks you to see over 20 other films as the price of admission. It's the last episode of the most expensive TV show ever made. Black Panther has a rich creative vision kept in check by the metastory standards it has to keep its eye on.Need a place to hang? Like Discord? Don't mind dealing with a capricious demon lord? Then you're welcome to join our LGBTQ+ friendly, often silly, very geeky server to discuss food, music, video games, tabletop, and much more.
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2020-01-10, 01:30 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2015
Re: Superhero Movies Are More Than Just Flashy Special Effects
I understand that all the movies that you mentioned are great in their own way. But I just feel that Superhero movies are being snubbed all because the movies aren't deep enough to get nominated and win for the Oscar. Like just how deep can a movie be to get nominated for Best Pictures and win?
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2020-01-10, 05:49 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2010
Re: Superhero Movies Are More Than Just Flashy Special Effects
Endgame could conceivably get a nod for Best Picture in the same way Return of the King did as the capstone of a series of films. I doubt very much itd win though.
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2020-01-10, 07:30 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Superhero Movies Are More Than Just Flashy Special Effects
I mean, I like the marvel movies as much as the next guy, but while most of them are very entertaining, I'd also say that most of them don't really stand out in acting, direction or story, they all tend to be just competent in those fields. Just very interesting while doing it.
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2020-01-10, 10:52 AM (ISO 8601)
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2020-01-10, 10:53 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Superhero Movies Are More Than Just Flashy Special Effects
You should just ignore the Oscars (or any other award show) and watch what you like. Award shows are shameless self-promotion by the industry and the "winners" are chosen by internal politicking, not by any real effort to promote the best product. You will be much happier if you ignore them.
That being said I must concur with Eldan. I cannot think of any superhero movies that are really outstanding as great works of art. The big-budget-special-effect-fests are usually at best adequate in other regards. There might be low-budget movies with outstanding stories (though I cannot think of any) but superhero movies kind of require a certain amount of special effects due to their very nature. Even the best written and acted story will be hampered if it comes bundled with bad effects.
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2020-01-10, 11:07 AM (ISO 8601)
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2020-01-10, 11:09 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Superhero Movies Are More Than Just Flashy Special Effects
Special effects is what they are outstanding in and that's what they win for. Where's the problem?
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2020-01-10, 11:14 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Superhero Movies Are More Than Just Flashy Special Effects
Why? So far, it sounds like all you've said has been "their values are different than mine so they should change." What makes your opinion more correct than theirs? It's their award, they can make the criteria what they want.
Also all of this.
And also this.
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2020-01-10, 11:21 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Superhero Movies Are More Than Just Flashy Special Effects
Last edited by Bartmanhomer; 2020-01-10 at 11:21 AM.
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2020-01-10, 11:24 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Superhero Movies Are More Than Just Flashy Special Effects
The main thing to understand about the Oscar's is that they're an industry award. It's a party for insiders, by insiders and about insiders. It's the same thing as car dealers, manufacturers and garages gathering around to pick the dealer, the car and the American SUV in the budget class of the year. This means two things:
1 Given that the most prestigious jobs in the movie industry are the "above the line" jobs, the creative functions, and about half the voting members of the academy are actors, the movies picked are going to be their kind of movies. The movies that make Will Smith or Sandra Bullock say: "Man that was a powerful performance, I wish I had turned down The Matrix to do this one instead of Wild Wild West/Forces of Nature. I've always wanted to act a role like that!" Yes, Iron Man had a nice death scene in Endgame, it was a powerful moment. But it was one of maybe a handful of such moments in a decade of being portrayed by a flying CGI puppet with a steel face. I like CGI puppets, (though maybe not as much as rubber puppets) but I don't expect people who got into the movie business to act intensely, direct moving scenes or write great scripts to share my love of them.
2 The party is not for us. Why are people even watching? It's nice to have the list, see what the insiders thought about the movies that came out last year, after all they do have a unique perspective on things and know more about movies than I do. But don't make it any bigger than that.Last edited by Lvl 2 Expert; 2020-01-10 at 11:24 AM.
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2020-01-10, 11:27 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Superhero Movies Are More Than Just Flashy Special Effects
You haven't, though. You've said you like them. In your reviews, you say they have action, humor, and romance. You rate movies by being "Oscar-worthy," which you do not define. You then say that movies you like don't get Oscars for certain fields, without saying why you think they should, other than that you enjoyed them.
I think you may be severely misjudging how people feel about superhero movies.
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2020-01-10, 11:30 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Superhero Movies Are More Than Just Flashy Special Effects
I think mostly he's just severely misjudging what the Oscars are actually about. As our resident second level Expert mentioned, they aren't meant to be some objective measurement of the absolute best movie ever, its just what the insiders personally were interested in, as people on the inside specifically. I have no doubt that people step out of an Avengers movie going "wow, that was amazing!" a large majority of the time. Its just that "being amazing" isn't an Oscars category.
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2020-01-10, 11:33 AM (ISO 8601)
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2020-01-10, 11:34 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Superhero Movies Are More Than Just Flashy Special Effects
I agree that's what they are supposed to be, but there's also a lot of backroom politicking, not to mention some of the judges openly stating they don't watch most of the movies and just vote for what sounds like it should win.
I also agree that most people walk out of an Avengers movie going "wow, that was amazing!" But I doubt most people walk out of an Avengers movie going, "That should win Best Picture!" Whereas I can say that for Jojo Rabbit. Even if I don't care about the Oscars for all the reasons stated.
I agree.
See above, with the Avengers example.
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2020-01-10, 11:47 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2015
Re: Superhero Movies Are More Than Just Flashy Special Effects
Well Peelee and everybody else. I do see everybody point now: No matter how great the Superhero movie is: It'll never get nominated for Best Picture but only for Special Effects.
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2020-01-10, 11:48 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Superhero Movies Are More Than Just Flashy Special Effects
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2020-01-10, 11:50 AM (ISO 8601)
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2020-01-10, 12:13 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2015
Re: Superhero Movies Are More Than Just Flashy Special Effects
The level of inside baseball at the Oscars - and various other awards in the film industry - doesn't reach nearly that high. The overlap between industry and non-industry awards groups is quite high, and usually the average film critic's yearly top 10 list will include many if not most of the entries eventually nominated for best picture (and those that aren't will usually be nominated for some other significant category like Best Original Screenplay). The members of the Academy are aware of public perception and the overall popularity of films does matter. Even among 'prestige' films, doing well at the box office and connecting with a popular audience is important. Films like The Shape of Water or Green Book, the two most recent best picture winners, might not have done superhero level money, but they have represented box office successes.
What is true is that the Academy, and most other awards groups, places a low value on 'entertainment value' in terms of awards criteria, instead favoring 'artistic achievement' or 'visual expression' or other categories. They are trying to identify 'great art' according to various definitions. It's worth noting that it is entirely possible to be both massively popular and considered critically great at the same time. Recent years have seen extremely popular movies nominated, and 2019 actually saw three films that qualified as massive hits: Black Panther, Bohemian Rhapsody, and A Star is Born all get nominated.
Superhero films, however, are generally fairly lowbrow, especially Marvel movies with their persistent tendency to undercut drama through quips, utilize disposable villains with limited motive, and general lack of seriousness. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, people want to be entertained, but the box office already reasonably approximates 'most entertaining,' so its hardly surprising that awards tend to focus elsewhere.Last edited by Mechalich; 2020-01-10 at 01:14 PM.
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2020-01-10, 01:09 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Superhero Movies Are More Than Just Flashy Special Effects
Yeah. Avengers: Endgame was a good movie. Very enjoyable. It doesn't hold a candle to what I'd call the best movie I've seen this year, Parasite. Same for many years. Arrivals is just a better movie than Deadpool or Civil War. Blade RUnner 2049 is a better movie than Guardians of the Galaxy 2.
Doesn't make those movies bad. I enjoyed them. But they are not movie of the year good. They are Entertainment. Those other movies are Art.Resident Vancian Apologist
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2020-01-10, 01:41 PM (ISO 8601)
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2020-01-10, 02:13 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Superhero Movies Are More Than Just Flashy Special Effects
Superhero movies are art, they just aren't the kind of art that professional awards bodies or professional critics are looking for, most of the time, and usually they aren't trying to be.
This is quite common. In some ways every era has it's highly popular artform that generally doesn't reach for critical greatness. In the 1950s and 1960s it was Westerns. Hollywood churned those out by the hundreds, on TV and Film, and only a select few were critically lauded and won awards. If you look at the Best Picture nominees for that period you completely miss how dominant the Western was as a format during that time. Many of the most famous westerns, such as The Searchers - widely seen now as one of the best and most influential films ever made - weren't even nominated.
A small number of the current crop of superhero films have received significant critical recognition and have won major awards. I mean, it is entirely possible that that following this year's Academy Awards two different actors will have won Oscars for portraying The Joker. And it is likely to be future films in the vein of Joker that achieve glowing critical reception and awards consideration, because they have greater opportunity in that regard compared to the highly formulaic Marvel films.
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2020-01-10, 02:58 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Superhero Movies Are More Than Just Flashy Special Effects
-I want to point out what this looks like when you take out the specifics:
-I like this thing A.
-This thing A does not get the highest awards of this thing B's award ceremony.
-This thing B needs to change their award criteria.
<others ask: why?>
-Because people like me feel thing A deserves to win thing B's award.
So the people involved with this other thing should change how they go about the other things simply because you have decided that your thing needs to be a part of their thing AND win at their thing (and given that there is only one award per category, by definition ensure that the thing that otherwise would have won loses out), even though it doesn't currently meet the criteria to win.
So, again, we ask why? Why should your desire for a specific kind of recognition (for a thing you love) trump their desire for recognition for some thing they love in their own prize-awarding ceremony? Particularly since this is their only real source of accolades. Big blockbuster action films don't need to win at the Oscars because they've already made their statement of cultural relevance at the box office (and DVD sales, and streams, and toys, and lunchboxes, and PJs and Halloween costumes and birthday decorations....). Seriously, Avenger: End Game made over a billion dollars worldwide (just as a movie), I'm having a hard time seeing it as the mistreated underdog here. Let the barely-noticed-otherwise arthouse films have their award, rather than the summer blockbusters get their amazing paychecks, worldwide attention, and continuous praise and the arthouse films' award as well for some reason.
Why do you do this?
All forms of creative expression are art. That does not mean that art A needs to win art contest B's awards (particularly if art A is massively larger and will swamp people genuinely attempting to do Art-style B's type of art). Beyoncι or Drake or whomever do not need to win the Appalachian Bluegrass Festival's highest awards and Hamilton does not need to win the National community Dinner Theater awards for best show. The Oscars are an award for* achieving a certain level of quality for a certain style of art ('pretentious Oscar-bait film,' as it is often referred to). There is no reason for Blockbusters to either want to become that, nor for the Oscar criteria to change to match what the blockbusters are doing. Certainly not simply because you in particular want that, at least not given that making you happy would make someone else sad.
*although, even then, it's often not, as it often is a reward for a famous director that acts as an apology for them not getting the Oscar for a previous, much better, film.
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2020-01-10, 03:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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2020-01-10, 04:19 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Superhero Movies Are More Than Just Flashy Special Effects
I think it might be worthwhile to consider a distinction between art and entertainment in regards to movies. While I don't think there's necessarily always a clear distinction between these two types of movies, I consider it generally true that you can draw a useful distinction for purposes of thinking about movies.
Entertainment movies are ones meant to be engaged with while they're on the screen and generally aren't intended to have any deeper meaning or message in them other than what can be clearly understood from a naive observation of surface-level events.
Art movies are ones meant to be engaged with after the movie ends. Where there is an intended meaning or messages that may not be immediately clear and may ultimately involve things like unreliable narrators or metaphors that may be unclear during an initial viewing. They're meant to be analyzed in some fashion or discussed with others to get a fuller understanding.
I think the goal of superhero movies tends to be much more about the former than that latter. And it seems to me that award shows tend to bias towards the latter variety.I write a horror blog in my spare time.