Has "The Big Short" Already Been Crowned the Next Academy Award Winner?

There has been a rule in the last several years that the Producers Guild of America chooses the winner of the eventual winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture.  This is not because the PGA award is the most prestigious award on the planet, it is because that is usually the first claim by a movie that ends up sweeping all the major guild awards.  The Screen Actors Guild gives out their highest honor a couple weeks later, and then a week later the Directors Guild of America hands out their award to the best achievement in directing.  In the past the DGA has most matched up with the eventual Academy Award winners, but it was also during a time when the three guilds largely did their own thing.  These days with voting so close together and many members who overlap in membership, all the guilds tend to award the same film.

It was especially evident that the guilds just followed one another the year "Argo" ran away with all the awards, including the SAG award for Best Ensemble Cast, which should have logically gone to "Silver Linings Playbook" which had three acting nominations compared to "Argo's" one (which wasn't even in a lead category).  If you want more details on stats and how they match up with Oscar I (reluctantly) recommend you check out Awards Daily, as blogger Sasha Stone has become somewhat of a master at awards statistics.  My more reserved observation is that whatever has won the PGA in the past seven years has gone on to win Best Picture when Oscar time rolled around.  This weekend the PGA awarded "The Big Short" their highest honor, which officially makes that the movie to beat.

The thing about this year though is that this is the first time in a long time things don't seem so certain.  While "The Big Short" could theoretically go on to win SAG and DGA, SAG might heavily favor the acting friendly "Spotlight," while DGA is likely to honor George Miller for his crack-filled visionary masterpiece "Mad Max: Fury Road." "The Big Short" could snag the SAG award as it has a great ensemble cast, but would it really walk away with DGA?  It could, but that would be pretty disappointing when you have the aforementioned "Mad Max: Fury Road" and "The Revenant" in competition.  At the moment the race still feels very much wide open despite what the last several years have proven to be certain.  I kind of hope none of the guilds match up, because it makes for a more exciting Oscar race.

Each movie has it's supporters at the Academy.  "The Big Short" and "Spotlight" are loved by the actors.  "Mad Max: Fury Road" seems to be loved by the directors and visual artists.  Everyone seems to love "The Revenant," but with Alejandro González Iñárritu having swept up all the awards last year for "Birdman: Or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance" it seems to be at a huge disadvantage in terms of voters feeling compelled to vote for him again.  Then we have "Room," which could be a sleeping tiger waiting to pounce.  I mean, how else can you explain Lenny Abrahamson's Best Director nomination despite not getting any predecessor support?  I mean, he even took the nomination away from Ridley Scott for his direction in "The Martian," and this was a guy who was poised to win before the nominations were even announced.

At the moment the race is still wide open and I like it best that way.  It makes the race more interesting and it gives everyone a chance to win at the Oscar pool at the Academy Award parties I throw.  However if "The Big Short" wins SAG then I think it winning Best Picture at the Academy Awards is all but a done deal (even if Miller walks away with his much deserved DGA).  We either know everything at the moment or we know nothing at all.  Sort of exciting isn't it?  For the record, here is my review for "The Big Short." As you can see I liked it, but I wasn't floored by it.  That could potentially change with future viewings, but for the time being that would be a fairly disappointing winner compared to some of the other films nominated.  Also my favorite film of last year - "Inside Out" - wasn't even nominated for Best Picture.  Since they have a Best Animated Feature award though, I guess they can just award it there and move on with their day.

Do Critics Care When a Movie Gets Delayed?

So news broke last week that "Star Wars: Episode VIII" has been delayed.  Originally scheduled for May of 2016, the film will now bow in theaters somewhere in December of 2016.  This means that Star Wars fans will have to wait several additional months for the next installment.  This led to some people asking me if I was upset by the delay.  The honest answer is no I was not.  And this isn't because I'm NOT looking forward to the next Star Wars.  It may sound hard to believe, but I am actually very much looking forward to the next Star Wars film. Yes, I wasn't blown away by the new movie, but (if you've read my review) you'll know that I did enjoy it, and I do believe the next one will be better.  I am not disappointed by this movie being delayed any more than I was disappointed when "Kung fu Panda 3" got delayed: There are always movies to watch,

I've written about this in the past, but apparently it bears repeating.  Folks, when you do this for a living you see at LEAST a few movies a week!  Sometimes you'll see a few movies a DAY!  If a movie - ANY movie - gets delayed, you're honestly not going to notice!  Yes, there are films you look forward to seeing more than others, but you see so many movies that it's pretty easy to lose track of what is being released and when.  Also, on a personal level, I want to point out that I don't watch previews.  I've written a few posts on the subject and why I don't, but when you don't watch previews you do lose out on the all important date that movie studios want you to remember.  It gets to the point where I completely forgot that "Inside Out" existed until the week before when I saw it at a critics screening (I also want to point out I didn't know what the movie was about, which added to the surprise).

So that's one reason critics don't get too upset that movies get delayed.  A second reason I'm not particularly upset about the new Star Wars being delayed is that it was only delayed by a few months.  This isn't like when Warner Bros. delayed "Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince" by a whole year.  In that situation there were no movie problems, nothing to hold up production...in fact, the movie was in the can when it was supposed to be released in 2008.  However, that year Warner Bros. released a little film called "The Dark Knight," which made so much money it made more sense to delay a sure fire hit into the next year to help insure great profits the next year.  During that year I was still making a name for myself in my journalistic field (a website I ran about comic books got more traffic at the time), so I wasn't seeing as many movies as I see now.  That delay was honestly felt, and it did upset me.

However, I survived, and so did all the other Harry Potter fans survived as well (even though they claimed they would boycott the film unless the release date was moved back up).  The final reason I'm not too upset by this (and this is where you readers should take note) is that it's not like you're going to be without your Star Wars fix.  Disney XD is airing a new Star Wars cartoon that is - to be perfectly honest - pretty darn good.  Also coming out later this year is "Star Wars: Rouge One," one of the many spin-off films Disney has in the pipeline.  In fact, there is going to be a new Star Wars film every year at least until 2019.  So to all you Star Wars fans who are disappointed by the delay, please calm down and look at yourself.  Putting all this into perspective, there is really nothing to be upset about.  The delay wasn't very long and there will be more than enough supply of this franchise to meet the demand.

Do I Hate "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" Because It's Successful (Or: Does Box Office Reflect Quality)

At a New Years Eve party I attended several friends all wanted to know what I thought of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens." Of course I was happy to discuss with them my thoughts, my feelings, and what I felt were genuine shortcomings of the film itself.  I spoke so much about this movie to so many different people that night that you'd honestly think there was absolutely nothing else playing in theaters that month.  Most of what I had to say about the movie did not come off as kind that night.  I mentioned that this was a movie where nothing happened. I lamented on the fact that it was essentially the first movie remade.  I stood my ground that the movie was no where near the best as there was no reason for Disney to make it great, they just had to make sure it wasn't terrible (though, let's be honest, it would have still made money even if it was).

At one point someone asked me if I didn't like it.  I laughed and said "of course I like it... it's just the praise for this thing is making it harder to defend." I was wrong in this answer and I'm here to explain why.  One of my biggest problems is when I ask someone if they like a movie and someone says "it's not as good as everyone says/thinks it is." I get annoyed and I tell them that that is not a good answer.  That is not sharing an opinion of the movie, that is sharing an opinion of other peoples opinion of the movie.  I constantly tell people that how other people feel about the movie should not play a factor when it comes time to critique the film.  A movie can't help it if everyone loves it.  I understand why this is annoying.  I lived through the year of "Titanic," and while I thought it was a great movie (one of my favorites at the end of the day), it got so intrusive I was starting to hate it a bit.

This is what we all cleverly call 'the backlash,' and it happens with pretty much everything that gets popular.  When "Frozen" was released it was hailed as a masterpiece and Disney's best film since "The Lion King" (on a side note I want to mention this is a false compliment because it suggests Disney hadn't been making good movies since 1995; it was really their best film since "Wreck-It-Ralph").  Once people started seeing it in droves, throwing a lot of money at it, and ensuring that the box office exploded it was time to turn around and hate it.  The merchandise overflowed the theme parks to a great extent, and people felt like Disneyland has unofficially become Frozenland (on an additional side note I want to mention that if you thought this was a problem with "Frozen," just wait until Star Wars gets ahold of Disneyland and you see how bad THAT gets).  So yes, "Titanic" and "Frozen" overstayed their welcome and got people to hate them for a little while.

Did that mean these were bad movies?  No, not by a long shot.  They were still good movies and if the public were discussing them on that level alone, the movies were still good.  The same needs to be said for "Star Wars: The Force Awakens." At the end of the day it is a good movie.  I never once felt it was a great movie, but it was good.  The only reason I bother to take a moment to mention I don't think it's a great movie is because the blogosphere and box office would have you believe otherwise.  But the fact that it tears up both like a chain saw through tissue paper does not diminish or elevate the product itself.  It is still the same film.  Unless the movie provided something new to discover the second time around this does not make it better upon the second viewing (my personal opinion is that it was less exciting the second time around, but not enough to dock it any stars).

The thing about all this is that the only time this sort of discussion comes up is when the movie becomes successful and starts breaking records.  To my knowledge no one ever questioned if "The Iron Giant" or "The Hurt Locker" were bad movies because they did poorly at the box office, nor did they pressure me with the question if I think highly of those films specifically because they failed financially.  And the answer is obviously no.  I like those movies because they were good movies, not because they didn't get the love I thought they deserved (though that is certainly the case).  Likewise the huge success of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" didn't make me have more problems with the movie itself, as the problems I have with it were there the whole time.  I do know people who have taken the box office results into account with their opinion, and have use those results in their arguments both for and against the film.

This is where a true critic has to step in and be the mediator in all this: Box office is nothing more or less than how financially successful something is.  McDonald's has been the most successful seller of burgers for years, but I don't think that fact has affected anyone's feelings towards the burgers themselves.  No one is eating there thinking "you know... this burger is good, but it's not THAT good!"  They aren't thinking this because they don't care how many have sold, they just want edible food.  Yet when it comes to movies the public likes to play this game that the box office means something when it doesn't.  The box office doesn't make a bad movie good. It doesn't make a good movie bad.  It doesn't mean a movie is good until it crosses a certain financial point at which the product is now sullied.  Heck, with inflation, 3D, and IMAX surcharges, it doesn't even mean this installment is much better than any of the other installments because it made more money.

It just means the movie is financially successful.

So to answer the question this topic poses, no, I don't hate "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" because it's successful.  I am disappointed that people are passing up seeing much better movies because it's in theaters, but that has no bearing on the movie itself, which I am perfectly fine with.  Now, some people that night asked me if the public responded well to the film because it was Star Wars film... that is a completely different subject that is worth addressing in the near future, because I do believe that claim might have some legitimate points behind it.

My review for "Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens"

Critics New Year's Resolutions

 

I'm sitting here, looking at my "to write" list of articles and reviews I need to either write or finish writing.  Working on this blog is not on the list, so naturally I'm going to put all the other stuff off to work on this.  I'm not certain this is going to be a long post (or even a very deep post), but since it is officially 2016 I  decided it would be a good idea to make a public record of goals I want to accomplish by the end of the year.  These aren't things like "I plan to eat better" because I can tell you right now I have no plans on that, but these are projects I want to see through to the end and hopefully having a public statement of those things will hold my feet to the fire and actually get them done.  So, because I have real work I need to do, here are what New Years Resolutions for this film critic looks like:

• Finish writing reviews on backlogged list - I keep a list of reviews that I need to write, and currently I am fifteen reviews behind schedule.  I would like to eliminate that list and get it down to zero by March.
• Weekly YouTube uploads - This one I'm already doing a good job on, but YouTube has become important for my editorial and writing, so I want to keep that channel up to date and have new content every week.
• Reopen The Comic Book Guy.com - Believe it or not, I still get the occasional e-mails from readers who want to know what happened to my comic book review site.  It's been a few years since the site went down, but it might be time to review the site.  The blogosphere has no shortage of nerd news and commentary sites, but I think comic book fans yearn for sites that cut out the pandering garbage and get down to debating the actual merits of visual literature, and maybe it's time for The Comic Book Guy.com to make a comeback!
• Redesign The Movie Wizard.com - In 2017 The Movie Wizard.com will be celebrating it's 10th anniversary.  That is a long time to be doing something (though in all fairness, a year or two was taken off here and there).  The thing is, in all that time the website has only gotten one redesign.  How the site looks has never been a huge concern as there are only so many ways to project a review, but having a more modern site with comments and RSS is long overdue.  Since YouTube has become a huge part of what I de these days, the site redesign is going to be a priority, and I hope to have it done by January 1st, 2017!

Alright, that's all I'm going to commit to at the moment.  As you can see, these are long term goals that I'm going to be working on.  Who knows if everything will come to fruition, but we have to make the plans before anything can happen.  Hopefully I will have more updates on these projects soon, so keep an eye on this space!

Films During Christmas Are So...Depressing

November and December is probably the busiest time for a film critic.  This is when we do the most work, see the most movies, and (personally speaking) this is the time when I have to edit and put final touches on books that are due out in January.  This already puts a lot of stress on a critic, but for the past few years I have noticed another problem altogether.  See, the reason this is the busiest time of the season for writers of film is because it's Oscar season.  This is when all the studios are releasing their films that are "big," "important," and "potent." Films that feature heavy dialog and tough subject matter start flooding the theaters.  Some of the films I've seen in the past few weeks involve father abandonment, child molestation, survival at all costs, and epic space battles that I am legally obligated not to talk about in specific detail until next week (though I will say that this unnamed film is not nearly as much fun as it should be).

That some of these movies are some of the best of the year is of little comfort.  It makes me wonder: What happened to all the fun Christmas films?  It used to be every year we could expect some Christmas films from studios.  Some would be for adults.  Most would be for families.  There was honestly only a fifty-fifty chance of them being good, but when they were good they could be really good ("The Polar Express" and "Arthur Christmas" are two somewhat recent examples).  I remember my dad taking me to movies for my birthday and we would see movies like "The Muppet Christmas Carol," "The Santa Clause 2," and "The Grinch." This year the big movie being released for my birthday is "In the Heart of the Sea," which features no Christmas joy anywhere.  So far I have only seen two Christmas films this year.  The first was the profoundly stupid "We Love the Coopers," which was so bad it was practically gone from cinemas before December even hit (good luck finding it now if you live in a smaller town).

The second is "Krampus," a much better (and shockingly enjoyable film for something that wasn't screened for critics) holiday themed movie that looks at the "other" mystic figure of Christmas that isn't so nice and comes into the picture when Santa decides you weren't nice enough to get any presents.  It's a fun movie to be sure... but it doesn't exactly bring the Christmas cheer one would hope for. Granted, neither did "Bad Santa," but that was released in June the year it came out.  There is also "The Night Before" out there, but I haven't seen it, and I doubt Seth Rogan is going to bring any holiday cheer.  The Christmas films have been so few and far between these past couple of years, that many movie theaters are dedicating screens to classic movies to fill the void of holiday cheer.  This year my local theaters are almost all showing "Home Alone," "Miracle on 34th Street" (both versions), and "It's A Wonderful Life!" Before "Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens" opens there will be some IMAX's showing "The Polar Express" again.  Heck, one theater near me is even showing Adam Sandler's "Eight Crazy Nights."

That movie is so unpleasant you would find more cheer in watching "The Silence of the Lambs."

It all makes me wonder: What the heck happened?  When did going to the movies during the most wonderful time of the year become such a bleak thing to do?  Right now the only movie that has any sense of holiday cheer is "The Peanuts Movie," which has some scenes during Christmas, but is not a movie that is in and of itself about Christmas.  It is true that Christmas movies have somewhat limited commercial appeal.  People only really want to see them during December.  Most of them open in November to try and stretch out their profitability window, but if they movie tanks during the first couple of weeks it could be gone before that crucial period hits.  Open it too late and it never takes off at all.  The movie can't be released on DVD until the following November because no one wants it before then.  The pro to this though is that if the movie IS successful, you are guaranteed to sell it every year to people in one form or another.

Will studios return to their old tradition of making Christmas movies?  I'm concerned about that.  Hollywood has become more about franchise and Oscar movies.  Holiday films don't really fall into either category at the moment.  That becomes a problem because the most we can expect these days is for a non-holiday movie to at least have a portion of the film that takes place during Christmas.  There's also that whole war on Christmas thing going on, where it becomes more and more politically incorrect to celebrate the holiday every year.  Ah, I better stop before I get into a topic that is too big for me.  At the moment I am watching more movies than I usually do, doing more writing than normal, and yet I'm not feeling a whole lot of joy from these movies regardless of their quality.  I don't know what the problem is and I don't know if there is a solution, but hopefully Christmas films will start to feel festive again at some point.

Yes, I Get to See the New 'Star Wars' Early...So What?

Once in awhile the subject of me getting to see movies early comes up.  This usually happens around the time of a highly anticipated summer blockbuster.  People say how much they are looking forward to a certain movie and I respond with a "oh, I get to see that two weeks early" or "I've already seen it."  There is usually a little jealousy at this point, but rarely to the extent I've seen with "Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens" (yes, I'm including 'Episode' in the title because we all know that's what this movie is). These days people have been seething with anger finding out that I am getting to see this movie earlier then them.  The comments range from "you lucky SOB" to "why can't I have your job?"  Here's the thing though guys: Me seeing the new Star Wars movie early really isn't that big of a deal, and honestly, if you were in my position it wouldn't be to you either.

Yes, I do get to see Star Wars early, but I also get to see virtually everything early.  Every movie that a studio hopes to be a hit is screened for the critics (movies that aren't screened are usually so bad we find we don't care).  Every.  Single.  One.  So yes, I get to see Star Wars early, but I also saw "Specter" last week.  I saw "Minions" three days before it went wide.  I saw all "The Hobbit" movies two weeks before they were made available to the general public (then I went to them again with my family for Christmas).  Seeing a movie early loses it's luster very quickly,  It's far more impressive if you're one of the few people to see "Let it Be" or "Song of the South," movies that studios try desperately to keep out of the public eye.  Seeing a movie early is a bragging right you can have for two weeks at the most.

Trust me, I would give up my rights to see the next six Star Wars movies early if I could view "The Day the Clown Cried," which would be a bragging right I could take to the bank.  The second thing to keep in mind is when you are in this line of business, seeing things early becomes the new norm.  So you aren't seeing movies early after awhile so much as you are on a different set schedule.  The third thing is that when you do this for a living long enough and you stop getting excited about new releases because there's always something to see (but I've written about that in another article).  The final reason this is not a big deal is something that is rarely discussed (and hasn't been suggested by a lot of people recently), but it needs to be said:

"Stars Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens" might not even be a good movie.

Sorry, but it's true.  Excitement for the film is high and a lot of people want to see it, but that doesn't mean we're going to get a good movie.  The trailers (which I have not seen) may be exciting to watch, but as I've said before, trailers are not an indicator of a films ultimate quality.  We had this sort of excitement over "Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace," which was so hyped we were absolutely convinced it couldn't be bad.  Yeah...glad that went according to plan, right?  If I may be frank with you all, I think people who are pre-ordering their tickets for this thing and getting their hopes up are fools.  This franchise has burnt you so many times, that I would hope you would demand the film prove itself in being good BEFORE you make it a hit!  But that's a rant for another day.

Bad Language in Reviews

Before we begin I want to take a moment to mention that this post started out as something completely different.  In fact, I wrote another blog post altogether where I publicly shamed someone on Facebook.  The argument got started over his using the f word to make a point and claiming he was more intelligent than everyone for using the word to drive home a point.  I made the argument that foul language didn't really mean that, and his response was to unfriend me and basically act like a spoiled prissy brat.  I scrapped that article because I am more mature than that at the end of the day, but it did get me thinking about a touchy subject in the profession today: Bad language in film reviews.

When film critics first became a thing, there was never any bad language in their writings.  This was mostly because the reviews were on TV (in a day before cable), printed in newspapers (are those still around?), and were geared for families because they made up for most of the ticket buyers (clearly not the case anymore).  These days it's a different ballgame now.  TV has expanded to cable and premium cable, which have more lax rules when it comes to what you can and can't say.  YouTube has become a huge way to express opinions, and those have no editorial control at all.  Newspapers are pretty much a thing of the past, and blogs and Twitter have overtaken them as the new place to get information.  Again, most of these sites are free from decency regulations (though more are gaining editorial control for quality sake).

Teenagers now make up a majority of the ticket buying, and they don't give a flying rat crap about quality written reviews.  If they read a review, it's because they find the review to be entertaining to read, not insightful.  All of these factors have made critics change their writing styles to adapt to the times, and one of the things they have adapted is foul language.  Foul language, for better or worse, is a big selling point for opinions and editorial these days.  You don't have to think of clever ways to say something is a piece of...well, you know.  You can feel more "adult" even if you are a ten year old kid writing on a Live Journal account.  And the f word is funny.  I mean, it's so funny that a video game nerd made a career out of saying it to bad Nintendo games.

So the question is brought up several times on why I don't curse in my reviews (or, should I say, very RARELY curse).  Why not jump on the band wagon and just do what everyone else is already doing and finding success in doing?  Well, the main reason I don't use foul language in my reviews is because foul language is also poor language.  Have you ever wondered why your grandparents said that cursing strongly suggested a poor vocabulary?  Let me tell you something: It's not because your grandparents were prude.  In fact, the real reason, believe it or not, is because your grandparents did know what those words actually mean.  Have you ever looked up the definitions of the curse words you put in your reviews (or use in real life)?  I mean, have you ever REALLY researched what they mean?!

More often than not, you are using those words incorrectly.  Words have power, but they also have meaning.  The dreaded f word, the one word that is so offensive and used more than most curse words, is almost always used incorrectly.  Take a moment to dust off your dictionary and look up what the word means.  Now, if you say this word, think of how you use it in a sentence.  I bet you aren't using the word correctly yourself.  It sounds good, yes, but you aren't using it correctly.  The thing about learning you are doing something incorrectly is that no matter how right it sounds, you now feel foolish for sounding uneducated.  It's like when Captain America thought that a fondue was a slang term for intimate relationships (when it really is the word people use for a cake you dip in chocolate).

Once he found out what it really meant, do you think he was going to use it in the way he thought it meant like he did before?  Of course not.  Yet in the world of film criticism, all these young critics use foul language in their reviews all the time without realizing they aren't using proper English.  It sounds good to them, so they say the words, but they don't comprehend what they mean.  That is the main reason I don't use bad language in my reviews.  I know what they mean, and I respect my readers too much to use them.  I want to strive to use proper sentence structure, descriptive words that mean what they are supposed to mean, and I want the review to read as good as it possibly can.  Now, once in a blue moon, I will use a well placed curse word to drive a point home.

I'm not saying curse words can't be used for great effect.  Used properly, any word can pack a punch.  What frustrates me is how liberally these words are used, how often they are used, and how they don't even mean the things the writers think they mean.  Also, using certain words over and over again doesn't read very well, yet most people will use the f word two or three times in the same sentence.  I mean, come on, isn't that a problem your teacher in third grade told you to avoid?  The point of this post is not to tell you how to write reviews or express your opinions, but rather to share my particular view on this topic, and hopefully give you some insight into why I feel the way I do about it.