We’re working on getting our FYC gallery updated but until then, here is a peek at what’s coming. When you look at these ads you can really see how the studios hope to get straight to the voters – especially those who still read Variety and don’t go online much – sitting in their doctor’s waiting room, waiting for their agent to get off the phone. Variety is full of contender friendly content with the stars who are putting in the paces. Here are some of the ads that caught our eye.
The cool thing about these ads is the studios have a much larger canvas to work from rather than the smaller squares they use for online advertising.
Would love to see some “Selma”, “Gone Girl”, “The Imitation Game” and more “Foxcatcher” FYC pictures.
I think “Consider Everything” with Hawking in the bottom corner may be the smartest of them all.
I mean, sure I won’t be mad if and when SELMA or INHERENT VICE or any movie I expect to like doesn’t get an overall 100 on Metacritic or whatever, that would be foolishly childish (childishly foolish too?) and anyway, what work with personality doesn’t cause one or a couple of cretins to lose their equanimity like this one did with this Rose fellow, assuming that SELMA, like all great movies, has a recognizable temperament, hence my mention of P.T. Anderson’s latest. I think being suspicious, on principle, of films about historical accounts is pretty legitimate since we, as audience, strive to find originality, no? I know, for instance, that Michael Haneke detests them, and I for one do not hold the overwhelming majority of them in any kind of regard — but as we all agreed, this fucking guy.
I mean, yeah, that guy sounds like a disdainful proper imbecile. I just said “confused” and “agitated” because I’m going positive this season. k, bye.
Ryan and Bryce: I tend to agree with you about Rose’s review. Especially that last sentence, Ryan. That bothered me as well.
I just want to clarify that I linked to it not because I think it’s a great (or even good) review, but thought it interesting (or at least worth acknowledging) that there are apparently reviewers out there who don’t heap praise on Selma. But, yes, I was a bit disappointed when I found that neither Kermode or Bradshaw had done the particular review. They deserve all their kudos, but this guy?
We can take a look at Metacritic’s past scorecards to see how accurate (or not) it has been…
http://www.metacritic.com/feature/movie-awards-and-nominations-2013 (8 of the 9 nominees in the Top 10)
http://www.metacritic.com/feature/film-awards-and-nominations-2012 (8 of the 9 in Top 10)
http://www.metacritic.com/feature/2011-film-awards-and-nominations (8 of the 9 in Top 10)
http://www.metacritic.com/feature/film-awards-and-nominations (10 of 10)
Pete is cool, he was on point about MAPS TO THE STARS if I remember correctly — and no, lol, I read that somewhere else.
Now that I’ve seen Foxcatcher, I have to chime in with the choir and concur that Tatum was Best in Show for me, with Ruffalo close behind. Carrell was impressive, but didn’t wow me as much as the others. :/
“yeah, I saw that bullshit “formula”: 3 points for winning an award, 2 points for each runner-up, 1 point for being nominated (and not winning)
oh goody, more bogus math. More numbers tagged to art so we know exactly how many ounces of movie we get for a nickle, or something.”
Oh Ryan! Haha!! 🙂
I hit submit too soon:
So is this a judgment on SELMA or the “genre” itself? Is he admitting to not liking movies which “handle big, important episodes of history” on principle? Or does he otherwise offer alternatives? He says he wants “mud” so I wonder if he understands the movie’s style which never stroke me as “neorealistic” in the least, but of course I’ve only seen the previews. As I said, I’ll try to remember to address this when I see the movie in mid-January, right?
Great points, Bryce and julian. Glad we’re all mostly on the same page about the off-kilter slant of this Stave Rose review.
Here’s some more gems from the Steve Rose review:
Right. How dare SELMA the movie try to portray black residents of Selma dressed in good clothes as they march.
This british dude wanted to see more wet dirty muddy black people.
“Sunday best?” In the South, there are black woman who lived through the 1960s who go grocery shopping wearing stylish hats. Today. Even today. Sorry, Steve Ross, sorry SELMA didn’t show you enough black people wearing burlap sacks with belts of raveled rope. Sorry, sorry.
Yes, that’s odd. “How come the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr is in a church? And why does that church have windows? Stained glass windows??! good Lord, Why are all those crosses and organs in a church? Props, I tell ya! it’s all tricky props!“ – Steve Rose
If Steve Rose shot a scene in a church he would not use those misleading emotionally-charged stained glass windows as a backdrop. He would search that church till he found a hot water heater in the basement for Martin Luther King Jr to stand in front of.
OK I couldn’t help it, I read the rest of that The Guardian’s reviewer — kind of odd that I don’t even have to see the movie to find fault in every one of his sentences. He sounds uncomfortable and confused, and his use of qualifiers has me nervous for him, e.g., grandstanding, the kind I refer to J.C. Chandor and, for instance, the speech he wrote for Jeremy Irons. I wonder if that texts he’s referring to are actual MLK-speeches that are used in voice over (or whatever). Does he talk about technique at all?
“Perhaps that’s the price of handling big, important episodes of history: it’s almost impossible to take risks or put a personal stamp on them”
So is this a judgment on SELMA or the “genre” itself. Is he admitting to not liking movies which “handle big, important episodes” of history on principle? Or does he offer alternatives? He ways he wants “mud” so I wonder if he understands the movie’s style which never stroke me as “neorealistic” in the least, but of course I’ve only seen the previews. As I said, I’ll try to remember to address this when I see the movie in mid-January, right?
Julian, you know I don’t read The Guardian, but thanks for excerpt! (saves me the click)
“The trouble is, that swelling oratory mode tends to creep into scenes where it doesn’t really belong”
That’s kind of facile tho in a kinder-garden sort of way. I guess I’ll see for myself if that’s even true!
@GREGOIRE
I feel like he really needs critically support–it’s definitely my favorite performance in the film, but it’s so subtle and internal–and subtlety doesn’t seem to be rewarded. 🙁
@MIKE @Alex Goes — I completely agree with both of you! Channing Tatum is the best thing about that film. He’s the only thing that continues to resonate with me. Steve Carell was fine but what a novelty really.
These are all great. My favorite is the Foxcatcher fog one. I really like though when the ads are the 30 foot tall pictures on the side of buildings in NYC and LA.
It looks like Metacritic has started the Oscar nominations scoreboard. It changes with every next nomination and win.
http://www.metacritic.com/feature/movie-awards-and-nominations-2014
“looks like Metacritic has started the Oscar nominations scoreboard..”
yeah, I saw that bullshit “formula”:
oh goody, more bogus math. More numbers tagged to art so we know exactly how many ounces of movie we get for a nickle, or something.
One of the great mysteries of physics is now solved: We already knew “it’s an honor to be nominated” but thanks to metacritic we now know that a nomination is worth exactly 33.33% of a win. (or, in layman’s terms: Winning is like THREE TIMES COOLER that being Nominated.)
Add the value of 3 nominations to get 1 win, or something. Hey, moviemakers, get your metamath card punched 3 times to win a free Metamath Slurpy).
Stephen Hawking is gonna love this.
it’s the Metacritic Theory of Everymetathing. It’s all so Mathyish!
You guys know what might be more intelligent than The Metamath Awards?
What if a person didn’t automatically think movies should be converted into numbers? and then that person could keep a tally of all the various precursor honors and use a human brain instead of a calculator to suss out which movies were getting more traction than others in the zeitgeist. Using, you know, discernment and insight — instead of doing silly 2nd grade math problems with misleading arbitrarily assigned numbers.
That person might be named Sasha Stone and that system of human discernment and insight might be called The Contender Tracker. A feature of the AwardsDaily sidebar for the past decade.
Bryce: The Guardian wasn’t nearly as impressed, though:
“The trouble is, that swelling oratory mode tends to creep into scenes where it doesn’t really belong. All too often in Selma’s quiet, intimate moments, strings and piano music start to swell on the soundtrack, dialogue gives way to extended, grandstanding monologue, and suddenly we’re thinking, “this’ll make a great clip for the awards campaign”. Perhaps that’s the price of handling big, important episodes of history: it’s almost impossible to take risks or put a personal stamp on them. There’s too much to honour and do justice to.
As a result, the movie becomes infused with that creamy glow of prestige myth-making. Everyone looks dressed in their Sunday best, and there’s no sense of the mud, rain and hardship the real Selma marches entailed. We often see King in church, backed by stained-glass windows, as if in admission that this isn’t the unvarnished truth; it’s the gospel.”
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/dec/05/selma-review-civil-rights-drama
The Guardian wasn’t nearly as impressed, though
Here’s a little pet peeve of mine. (yes, another of Ryan’s pet peeves).
The Guardian is inanimate and cannot be impressed. The New York Times cannot review a movie. The Village Voice can’t hate Adam Sandler because The Village Voice is not sentient.
The Guardian and the Times and the Voice publishers hire flesh and blood PEOPLE to write the things we read. It’s not TIME magazine that says The Grand Budapest Hotel is the best movie of the year. It’s Richard Corliss.
How does this matter? Because what if someone tells you, “THE NEW YORK TIMES RAVED about THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH” in 1952! That movie must be stupendous!”
If you know the insider facts of how things get printed in newspapers, you can retort: “Um, no. America’s most prestigious newspaper did not love that silly movie. But Bosley Crowther did. Bosley Crowther peed his pants over The Greatest Show on Earth. But let’s remember that Bosley Crowther is famous for being a fatuous wrongheaded dimwit.”
The guy who wrote the Telegraph review Bryce links is called Tim Robey. I don’t always agree with Tim Robey, but I have read enough of his reviews to recognize him as one of sharpest most sensitive and intelligent movie critics of the new generation.
The guy who wrote the Guardian review quoted by julian the emperor is called Steve Rose. I would tell you how I feel about Steve Rose if I had ever heard of him before today. I know one thing for certain. The Guardian’s Steve Rose is NOT the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw. (I don’t always agree with Peter Bradhaw either, but I have read enough of his reviews to recognize Bradshaw as one of sharpest most sensitive and intelligent veteran movie critics on Earth.)
I read this review by Steve Rose with an open mind, but I’ll confess the openness of my mind began to close off the deeper into his review I got. I had to shut Steve Rose out of my mind entirely when I got to his ludicrous last line:
oh hai, thanx mr european dude for schooling us amurcans on civil rights and reminding us how the fight is not over. cuz we fergot, oops! we fergot to look at the news ever day on the teevee. thanx U mr steve rose for showing us that there is “IRONY” in a movie where there is a victory but later on in real life, 1000s of times we realize we need to not think all our problems abt race is all Solved. cuz if you didnt say so by tsk-tsk-tsking at ava duvernay, i bet she wouldnt of never of thought that her movie was the last word on racism. (i wonder why ava duvernay dont have any black friends to tell her about the big mess in ferguson? thats weird.)
What a clumsy, gauche, tonally crude and intellectually dishonest way to end a review. He’s saying:
I don’t know this Steve Rose guy, but judging from his patronizing snotwad tone I’m guessing he’s a bit of a patronizing snotwad.
And I’m something of a specialist in patronizing snotwadism, so I know whereof I speak.
Yooooo
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/11275206/Selma-review-righteous-visceral.html
I love Christine Baranski in the ITW Ad so much.
I’m sad her role is not big enough to be a contender…. When will she have finally a role to get that spotlight?
She’s so fabulous in everything, I hope she gets a great movie role one day!
@MIKE
I completely agree. I loved all three performances, but I really hope that Tatum shows up as a surprise nominee.
I really prefer Channing Tatum’s performance over Steve Carell’s in Foxcatcher. Tatum and Ruffalo, to me, were revelatory and the true standouts of the film.
I love those FYC ads. Thanks !
That Foxcatcher poster gives me the chills. Whoever designed that one knew what he was doing.
Gosh, imagine that, Jessica Chastain to be campaigned for Eleanor Rigby?! And hadn’t we all thought TWC had totally lost faith in that film? What with her roles in Interstellar and A Most Violent Year likely to cancel one another out, due to the former film’s disappointing fortunes and her inability to campaign for the latter for some weeks yet, she may stand a shot at a nomination, in the end. The Best Actress race feels precarious atm, so they’d possibly be wise to mount a campaign for her.
Benutty, I expect Paramount will get into gear with Top Five soon. The reviews have been so good, and Chris Rock is back in the public eye again, so expect strong box office receipts for the film, which ought to bolster its shot at major award nominations.
Lol at that Into the Woods ad. Anna Kendrick and Chris Pine placed front and centre, despite the fact that Emily Blunt and James Corden are being run in lead for the film. They sure know where their strengths lie!
“JUST IN: Seeing opening after BIG EYES stumble, Weinsteins fire up best actress Oscar push for RIGBY’s Jessica Chastain”
Scott Feinberg
No Oscar season is complete without AD’s FYC gallery!
Love these things, too!
I kept a scrapbook of them in the late 60s and 70s – Most are full pagers from the NYT, but I should scan some of the smaller ones.
As I was looking through them this morning, I noticed an article entitled, “Oscar Possibilities an Undistinguished Lot”, which I will also scan. It opens:
“Nominations for this year’s Academy Awards race are almost completed, and it shapes as the most undistinguished contest within recent memory. Local observers fail to recall a more lacklustre field of candidates. Nowhere in sight are there films of the topmost calibre of a ‘Ben Hur’, ‘Tom Jones’, ‘West Side Story’, or “My Fair Lady’.”
It goes on to say, ” It appears to be a good year for dark horses. Certainly it’s not a good year for those poor souls forced by the exigencies of their profession to predict the Oscar winners.”
The article was by Bob Thomas and was written in 1967, now considered a seminal year on American filmmaking when old Hollywood clashed with the new. Thomas wrote: “”Bonnie and Clyde’ may well be the favorite judging from Eastern reviews hailing it as the greatest thing since ‘Birth of a Nation’. It isn’t that great, but it is an adventurous piece of film making.” (Also) “The Graduate appears to have the best chance among the noncrime films.”
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
I just peeped the Paramount FYC page and find it interesting that:
– Anne Hathaway IS being campaigned in Lead. I wish she was in the running :(((((((((((
– They do NOT have a “consider” page for Top Five, which I was predicting might play well in Comedy at the Globes. Maybe not????
Yes! Yes! Yes!
No I am not Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally, I am the boy who wets his pants when the FYC ads emerge. To me they are like putting the Christmas decorations up when you are eight years old.