All eyes were on the USC Scripter to help STOP the women in the Oscar race for 2015. It was touch and go there for a while, since Gillian Flynn won the Critics Choice after not being nominated for the Oscar. The idea that Flynn could adapt her own novel, which would then go on to make around $168 million, spark all kinds of debate, emerge from the entire year with the only quotable lines from any screenplay would actually deserve an Oscar nomination is truly terrifying. But that fear was put to rest when the Writers Branch of the Academy blocked Flynn’s inclusion, thus ensuring the patriarchy maintains its steadfast course.
We were really worried there for a while. My god, to think that anyone seriously considered Flynn not only a major contender, but a real threat to win the whole game? Thank god — thank god. We can’t have powerful females roaming the quiet countryside.
But the Scripter awarded its top prize to Graham Moore for The Imitation Game, who will likely go on to win the WGA and then the Oscar. This was Flynn’s to lose before the Writers Branch stopped it in its tracks. We can all thank them for helping to maintain the status quo and for keeping things harmonious in the awards race.
“Harvey Weinstein is the guy who gave us a movie poster for A Single Man that made it look like a delightful romance between Colin Firth and Julianne Moore. But no matter how careful and savvy Weinstein may be to make a movie that appeals to the widest audience possible, fact of the matter is, Weinstein has probably given us more gay-themed films than any producer besides James Schamus. And no matter how careful and savvy Weinstein may be in marketing gay movies to audiences, gay or straight, the movies themselves have an integrity that Weinstein doesn’t interfere with.”
I don’t mean that Harvey shies away from gay materials. My point is that I’m sure he knows that in order to win BEST PICTURE, an intimate scene between two men should be nipped from the movie. I know for a fact that he is very hands-on with the editing of a movie he’s distributing, INCLUDING movies that he’s acquired and not just produced. I’m sure that he saw the potential in Imitation Game as a Best Picture WINNING material (A Single Man is not in the same Oscar contender league). I have a colleague who has worked with Weinstein on one of his gay-themed films and Harvey would be in the editing room with him all the time. He was so disturbed by Harvey’s intrusion that he has vented to me by calling Weinstein “a homophobic [enter slur here]”.
I’m not asserting that Harvey is that nor do I necessarily think that my friend is justified in calling homophobic. But I see Harvey as a “politician” who knows which button to push and when to create the most widely seen (and profitable) product as possible. That’s why I wouldn’t be surprised that the deletion of the alleged love scene in TIG was a BUSINESS and not artistic decision on the filmmakers’ part. And by filmmakers” I mean Harvey as well as Moore or Tydlum.
Benutty, I think Flynn worked well but made some missteps. There could have been a script doctor to help take out some hokey moments but she was inside Nick and Amy’s heads so much that there probably wouldn’t have been a screenplay without her involvement. Then again I only saw it once. I’d love to watch it again knowing the entire plot.
Steven, the need for an unbiased eye is kind of why I think Gone Girl suffers as a screenplay. I think a writer who brought a fresh perspective to the story, rather than a foundational one, would have provided an experience different than the one we get from reading the book. The film reads as a translation (book to screen) rather than an adaptation. The film brings nothing new and offers a stale perspective on the story. While this may have worked for a lesser known story, it’s endlessly problematic for a story as widely-read and as popular as Gone Girl. For me, having Flynn adapt her own novel was a tactical mistake. I’m eager to see how Donoghue handles adapting her own novel (one that isn’t as popular!) this year.
Another problem that I think this is a similar problem with the Harry Potter franchise: it happened too soon. Stories need time to live in and develop within our consciousness before being adapted.
Benutty, other than writing in a completely different format it must be tough to take out pages the author absolutely loved and discard it completely. Sometimes adapting a book to the screen needs unbiased eyes.
My defense of The Imitation Game script, inspired off of Paddy’s comment “The Imitation Game is one of the most didactic, coarse, immature, conventional, trite, graceless screenplays of the year.”:
Every word spoken in The Imitation Game is about Alan Turing’s sexuality. While many argue that the film “isn’t gay enough” or depicts a safe version of Turing’s life, the truth is that they probably aren’t paying attention.
“Are you paying attention?… You think that because you’re sitting where you are, and I am sitting where I am, that you are in control of what is about to happen. You’re mistaken. I am in control, because I know things that you do not know. you will listen closely, and you will not judge me… Everything I am saying I am saying for a reason… If things happen that you do not like, you chose to be here… What happens from this moment forward is not my responsibility; It’s yours.”
Turing is telling us that every single aspect of the story that will unfold is important, that we must trust him. He has to say this because he’s saying it as a gay man to a straight audience. The film unravels from there as a perfectly paced metaphor–homosexuals are machines. Turing is a machine. He names his machine Christopher, after his childhood love.
“Enigma isn’t difficult. It’s impossible… Everyone thinks Enigma is unbreakable.” Enigma, too, is a machine/homosexual. It takes another homosexual to break the code. The code is the understanding and belief that homosexuality is not something to fear. But “everyone” is the straight world, and at Turing’s time “everyone” fears the unknowable, the unbreakable. But as he says in the beginning, Turing knows things the straight world does not know. A bit further along Turing says that the only way to figure out Enigma’s codes is to feed the codes back into Enigma–it takes a homosexual to solve (to defend, to explain, to make the straight world understand) homosexuality.
Turing is shown throughout the film, both in the childhood flashbacks and in the present adulthood, as a loner, someone apart from his community and his environment. This is true to Turing’s life, but it’s also true to the metaphor that Moore is telling. Turing was in every way an unbreakable machine to his heterosexual peers. The ONE character that was able to detect his sexuality on his own? The spy. This isn’t an accident. Spies live the same double-life that homosexuals did–their entire visible life a falsehood to the secret inside.
Before the flashbacks begin, Turing says “I didn’t learn this on my own though. I had help.” and this is where we’re introduced to Christopher. The only person that could help Turing is the other gay character in the story. Turing was his own enigma as a child–unsolvable, bullied, different. Only another kid that shared his sexuality could solve him, save him.
On page 30 of Moore’s script, Turing says the most important thing in the entire script: “It’s highly technical. You wouldn’t understand… Enigmas is a machine. A very well-designed machine. Our problem is that we’re trying to beat it with men. What if only a machine can defeat another machine?” Pair this with the refrain: “Sometimes it is the very people who no on imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.” With these two statements together we have the foundation of the entire script. Moore makes it VERY clear that it is Turing’s sexuality that saved the war, saved the lives, and solved the world’s biggest puzzle. Without his sexuality Turing wouldn’t have had the tools, the grasp of secrets and codes and thinking-outside-of-the-box, to solve Enigma.
There are COUNTLESS other examples of how the script is entirely about Turing’s sexuality. Think, for instance, what is happening when Turing finally figures out how to solve Enigma. The group is at a bar and a straight man is attempting to hit on a straight woman. Turing gets in the middle of it. He breaks up the flirtation to the frustration of all of the straight people, because all they can see is the bonds between men & women. But Turing, who does not see the world in the same way that they do, is able to detect the riddle that will solve Enigma. It’s his sexuality, his not-of-their-sexuality actually, and his resistance to the coupling of men & women, that is the moment that changes everything!
How, then, with these intricate, well-placed, and highly intellectual (if we’re talking queer theory) moments in Moore’s script can ANYONE say: 1) that the film isn’t gay enough, and/or 2) that it’s “didactic, coarse, immature, conventional, trite, [and] graceless”???????????
I honestly have trouble understanding this so I’m hoping someone can give me a well-rounded, thoughtful defense of it:
How is “adapting your own novel” something extraordinary?
Of course, you’re absolutely right about the whole ‘effluvia immersion’ thing you mention, the thing is, there is nothing we can do about it, at least not when you’re living in a cultural wasteland, far off NY or LA. We have to READ about what’s going on far prior to getting to use our own eyes. And sometimes, I wonder, how much that sense of disconnect influences the way we perceive works of art.
I knew so much about TIG beforehand that all it did was live up to my expectations of it, a clichéd (in a pleasant way) Brit biopic. Predictable, safe, nothing to get worked up about. Had I seen it like your pal from Bangkok, my takeaway might have been completely different, who knows? Maybe if it hadn’t been a major Oscar contender and a Weinstein vehicle, I might have enjoyed it more, because I wouldn’t have felt threatened by it somehow…?
Thanks Ryan, you’re a good soul. Sleep well.
P.S I love ‘effluvia’ – i love being taught new words. 🙂
i just had a hearty belly laugh with the Maggie/Dennis description, Ryan. 🙂
I’m going to dig out my notes over the coming days and create a list too of my favorite gay movies/storylines. I feel it is important; i encourage all my LGBT friends online to do it; it reiterates a need to find those characters and those mirrors for who we are and want to be. I am somewhat circumspect about all movies, but especially gay themed movies, as i burnt out in the 1980’s/90’s when there were a proliferation of festival type releases that. for me, anyway, did nothing for my gay soul, and felt starved of gay heart and soul from my cinema. Middle age has led me back on the trail. I really enjoyed ‘Cloudburst’ (broad, but touching and life affirming – qualities I seek).
I’m going to dig out my notes over the coming days and create a list too of my favorite gay movies/storylines.
several years ago I think we posted a massive poll of The Best Gay Movies of the past 35 Years. Tomorow I’ll see if that post is still in the archives (it might have got lost during a move to a new server a few years ago)
But we should start to do more coverage with an eye to gay cinema. Sasha has created the one of the most gay-friendly movie site on the internet. (along with Sasha’s former protege Nathanial Rogers and his site.) so that’s a really valuable asset that we should do more to stroke. Should. Can. Will.
several years ago I think we posted a massive poll of The Best Gay Movies of the past 35 Years
Here’s that poll. From March, 2011.
You can tap the “view results” button at the bottom of the poll form and it will reorganize the titles in ranked order, most favorite at the top.
oh, here’s another thing, I forgot about.
101 Years of Gay Cinema. We made of list of 375 gay-oriented films, going all the way back to 1912.
Would i be betraying my own argument, if i wished that Steve McQueen had made ‘Shame’ about a primarily gay male, rather than an omnisexual? That movie needed to be as graphic as it was, that’s what made it so amazing. Ana Kokkinos’s ‘Head on’ in 1998 was another raw exploration; there about young lust and the conflict between faith and sexuality and identify. I guess it’s all about context. The point I wanted to make earlier, was that Imitation Game is not fundamentally about Turing’s sexual drive; it’s a B plot or C plot.
“The point I wanted to make earlier, was that Imitation Game is not fundamentally about Turing’s sexual drive; it’s a B plot or C plot”
Yes! I’ve tried to make that point a few times, but I always let myself get lured into inventing vulgar hypothetical comparisons, mostly because I know Antoinette loves it when I do that.
Like, sure, we all just assume Margaret Thatcher went to town on Denis with a strap-on, but we don’t need to see that in a movie, do we? Anyway, lots of sex is best left to the imagination, and that goes double for our real-life adventures. We know Churchill enjoyed the ladies, but please don’t make me watch him in action in The Gathering Storm. (… “For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, Seem here no painful inch to gain…” …ack! stop!)
I like your idea about Shame so much that I think I might have managed to watch Shame that way already, by running it through my mental Enigma machine so that I can decrypt the gay subtext code in my head.
I haven’t seen Head On (1998) so now I know I need to. Weekend I saw only one time with somebody who was expecting it to be something else, so I need to see it again when I’m not worried about what anybody is thinking.
I have a tentative list forming of my 10 favorite gay-themed movies of 2014, and none of them is The Imitation Game because all of them are way more gay. Also, they all made way way less than $125 million worldwide, which goes back to why Moore was smart not to make it way way more gay.
Again, (short version) it’s more important to me that 15 million people see a fully-clothed version of The Imitation Game than to have almost nobody except 1 million mostly gay people see the spicier nekkid version.
There are lots of movies where I can see beautiful glowing gay intimacy. Bel Ami Studio makes a ton of them.
Ryan: I don’t want to go into this discussion, because you seem to have covered pretty much all the relevant aspects of it. I just wanted to say that you, by the force of your arguments, made me go from one position on this question to the opposite in the space of time it took me to read through these comments. No mean feat! You make a compelling case for why exactly the ‘sanitized’ version of Alan Turing makes absolutely sense within the movie we’re presented with, and why that is not something to feel outraged by. So, good job.
you, by the force of your arguments, made me go from one position on this question to the opposite in the space of time it took me to read through these comments
juliantheemperor, Thanks very much. You know part of me loves to hear that. But you probably also know that I can’t handle all that responsibility. So (goes without saying) EVERYBODY should just continue to stubbornly think what they want to think about all the movies and don’t pay much attention to anything I say, no matter how fervent.
I’ll tell you the truth, juliantheemperor, maybe everyone has forgotten me carping about Imitation Game near New Year’s Eve, but when I first saw it several weeks ago, it really didn’t hit me very hard. I was in a wrong mood for it. I expected another kind of movie and when that movie wasn’t delivered to fulfill my expectations, I put my feelings on ice.
But then just a few days ago, my best friend in Bangkok got hold of the movie, and we did a Skype date where we watched the movie while on the phone, 9000 miles apart, watching it synced up on laptops half a world away. I tried to discard my first meh impression and wanted to watch it with fresh unjaded eyes (talk about “no easy feat”! imagine that: me, unjaded)
Strange and rather wonderful thing happened. I could feel my friend getting swept up in The Imitation Game, his emotional involvement was palpable, even over the skype line. (unlike all of us, he rarely knows a single thing about any movie before he sees it. He goes in cold, with no background or buzz cluttering his impressions at all).
So we would pause the movie periodically and stop to talk about what we were watching, and then we’d spin up the discs again. I really liked hearing his fresh, innocent interpretations, unencumbered by any snark or hype. No reviews had he read, no dissections in the NY Review of Books — nuthin but the movie itself. He loved it, and his enthusiasm has helped me reevaluate it.
===
That’s how I wish we could see all movies, but that’s impossible for anyone who spends any time online immersed in all this effluvia like most of us do. But that’s also the great amazing advantage of seeing movies in theaters with real audiences — not crowded by exhausted festival goers or surrounded by VIP screening invitees.
Lots of times I feel at a real disadvantage living so far from either coast. I get invites to screenings in MY and LA — but, alas, no plane tickets. So that means I lag behind many of you who live in bigger cities where the movie pipelines pump movies to you sooner than I can see them.
But, point is, (if there is a point, I’m sleepy) — point is. I do like being somewhat at a remove from the noise of industry insiders and all that. The best way to see any movie is try to know as little as possible going in, and then we can form our own impressions without assistance from jerks like Joe Califano in the Washington Post telling us Selma is mean to LBJ. and we can decide for ourselves whether we really to see any Benedict Cumberbutt — or if we can discern enough of his character’s turmoil in his eyes, and not from any tangle of arms and legs.
I should probably go to bed now because I think I stopped making any sense about 30 minutes ago. Thanks, thanks, thanks, you guys, daveinprogress, WW, juliantheemperor, Antoinette — everybody — you all make it possible for me to see movies through your eyes, with fresh smart perspectives, just as if we were long-distance watching movies together on skype.
(and WW, sorry if I’ve come down too harshly… My opinion about movies is fluid and, this time year, very much in flux. So don’t ever think I’m not open to letting myself get convinced I’m wrong.)
Thanks to your influence and that of many of the regular commenters, i am more committed than ever to seek out gay stories and characters, but like you, i suspect, Ryan, i don’t need to always have the display of sex or sexuality in my films. I loved ‘Weekend’, and I still recall My Beautiful Laundrette and Beautiful Thing, primarily for the tenderness, the courage of the filmmakers to explore desire and lust and feeling different. I’m really excited to see Ben Wishaw in ‘Lilting’ later this month at our annual Queer Screen/Mardi Gras festival. Your advocacy of the various LGBT awards and the films contained within has been of huge assistance in finding stories that speak to me. I would like to think that is what we continue to look for in our cinematic endeavors.
Yep, it felt unprovoked and overly personal and insulting. Let me re-iterate how much I feel (and know) Awards daily is engendering change by advocacy and passion. That’s what sets it apart from hundreds of others. I know this is the heavy traffic end of the season. Keep refuelling and replenishing yourselves, Ryan and Sasha.
Harvey Milk comes to mind. 🙂
Harvey Milk comes to mind.
oh, erp. I forgot about that movie. you’re right, of course.
I guess I should have said: for close to 90 years of film history, there were no movies at all with gay heroes. Now in the past 5 years we’re finally seeing it happen. So I’m more thrilled with that progress than any feeling of impatience to see more gay sexytime onscreen.
It’s not as if straight people get to see themselves having sex much on the big screen either, right?
All year long, all through 2014, the hottest straight sex at the multiplex climaxed with a boxcutter making some poor guy’s jugular vein squirt for the money shot.
Ryan, i had a glimpse of the sort of toxic gloop you have to wade through, when you removed a really offensive comment on this thread. I had half composed a comeback, as I was offended for Sasha and for the site, but didn’t feel it my place to intervene. I appreciate how hard you work, and your humor with it.
Ryan, i had a glimpse of the sort of toxic gloop you have to wade through, when you removed a really offensive comment on this thread.
🙁 Then you saw how recklessly that comment crossed the line into personal hurtful insult. (We’ll leave it at that.) Sometimes Sasha and I leave a nasty comment on the page for everybody to see the commenter make an ass of himself — but the thing you saw was beyond the pale for obvious reasons. That person has never before commented at AD before. He’s now on the watchlist so the spam filter will get triggered if he tries that kind of sickening thing again.
i’m so slow, i’m still responding to the Weinstein defence line! Luv the gay degrees of separation for Julianne!
(daveinprogress, no problem. one of the wordpress admin superpowers is the ability to move comments around in space-and-time to tidy things up.)
WW writes:
WW, of course! please don’t ever interpret my sometimes bludgeoning tone as any effort to smash your own interpretation of a movie or quash your efforts to express your personal feelings. ok?
It’s been a lively and challenging debate, and you’ve done a great job making your case in spite of me and daveinprogress sort of ganging up on the opposite side.
But I tell you what, WW — there are at least 3 other gay readers here at AD who contribute to discussions almost every day, and I know for a fact that they agree with you. I bet they’ll be showing up soon to support what you’re saying.
It’s an issue that people naturally feel strongly about, an issue that many of take very personally. I’m more of a laissez-faire gay advocate and rather a cavalier la-dee-da sort of gay activist. I see encouraging changes happening and, in my experience, I’ve found that these favorable things sometimes happen faster if we don’t try to ram them through.
I would certainly have nothing AGAINST seeing Alan Turing have a roll in the hay with another guy, but honestly, for me, it wouldn’t add much to the movie —
more importantly, the way I see this very minor clash, it’s far more important to me that 15 million straight people are eager to see The Imitation Game even if this straight-friendly adaptation makes a million gay guys frown about taming the gay aspect. I’d rather have it like it is than to give a million gay guys the explicitly gay Alan Turing of our dreams — but then 10 million straight people get skittish and don’t buy tickets.
For me, Alan Turing wins over lingering prejudice by not forcing anything too gay down anybody’s throat (ahem). That way millions of straight people don’t have to feel uncomfortable — that’s how we ease society into gradual curiosity and eventual nonchalant acceptance. Same way the sanitized Will and Grace was mostly sexless but it cleared a pathway for America to get accustomed to the idea.
===
You know, I’m still a little irritated that so many progressives and liberals jumped on the We Must Protect LBJ! bandwagon. Sure, they were genuinely standing up to speak out against something that bothered them — but in the process they played right into conservative hands and let that little Hoover issue hijack the much more important message Selma was trying to convey.
So I would only hope that gay people who wish Alan Turing had been shown in more explicitly gay encounters do not inadvertently hijack The Imitation Game in the same way — by grumbling about Turing not being gay enough, they could damage THE ONE OSCAR MOVIE IN OSCAR HISTORY that has EVER given us a historic gay hero.
Isn’t that incredible milestone enough in itself to override quibbles that some people might have about 90 seconds of gay intimacy that they think are missing from their ideal dream of an Alan Turing movie?
^ Now there’s a line you don’t hear every day!
Ryan, i swear i wasn’t stalking you or rummaging around in your mind, before my comment! My brain works far slower than yours!
“i swear i wasn’t stalking you or rummaging around in your mind”
good, unless you like to play the intrepid attic-investigator in cobwebby horror movies.
nope, we’re just sympatico, that’s all.
🙂
speaking of julianne moore and gay directors though, on twitter a few weeks ago we began to name all the gay directors who helped lead julianne moore to all her most memorable performances… it was too many gay directors to fit into any fewer than 5 tweets.
Alan your assertions may or may not be right, but I’m not comfortable drawing such a broad stroke against film makers, especially as Weinstein also backed and distributed Colin Firth’s A Single Man, Granted it did not win BP nor Best Actor, but it was a major player 5 years ago and it had some intimate scenes between Firth and Matthew Goode.
nyah nyah i beat you to the weinstein defense by one full minute 🙂
“P.S. There’s one report that says an earlier draft of ”Imitation Game” DID have a gay sex scene, but it was cut.”
I have no doubt about that, especially if the film was produced by Harvey Weinstein. He’s a shrewd Oscar campaigner. He knows well enough that if the movie has a love scene between two men, its chance of winning a BP Oscar would be zilch.
Harvey Weinstein. He’s a shrewd Oscar campaigner.
Harvey Weinstein is the guy who gave us a movie poster for A Single Man that made it look like a delightful romance between Colin Firth and Julianne Moore. But no matter how careful and savvy Weinstein may be to make a movie that appeals to the widest audience possible, fact of the matter is, Weinstein has probably given us more gay-themed films than any producer besides James Schamus. And no matter how careful and savvy Weinstein may be in marketing gay movies to audiences, gay or straight, the movies themselves have an integrity that Weinstein doesn’t interfere with.
“is is indicative of the bad faith underlying the whole enterprise, which is desperate to put Turing in the role of a gay liberation totem ” – really, i didn’t get the filmmakers trying or achieving this!
P.S. There’s one report that says an earlier draft of ”Imitation Game” DID have a gay sex scene, but it was cut.
http://www.frontiersmedia.com/frontiers-blog/2014/11/03/gay-sex-scene-reportedly-removed-from-alan-turing-biopic-the-imitation-game/
Just as Tyldum and Moore were free to make the movie biopic of Turing they chose to make, I am equally free to critique it, just as others are free to lavish it with praise. It’s 2015, and I just wish gay love could be depicted on-screen with the same frankness that straight love is. That gay love isn’t any more ”salacious” than hetero love. That it doesn’t have to be closeted, and that it can be just as beautiful. (By the way, we’ve also seen portrayals of straight men who’ve slept with prostitutes; we don’t see them haggling over the price either, so that’s a silly rejoinder.) Look, I’m hardly the first or only one to bring up, and there are far more eloquent commentators, so I’ll leave you with their writings, rather than mine, as my last word on the topic :
Rich Juzwiak on ”The Imitation Game” at Gawker.com: ”With the topic of gay male sexuality, though, we must always be sensitive to what is being left out, what is going untold. If elements of gay sexuality are ignored, is it in the name of communication (that is, by not distracting more ignorant members of the audience) or suppression (that is by avoiding offending homophobes)? Both are cop outs, anyway, just with different degrees of insidiousness. Both serve to make gay more palatable without addressing the bigotry that casts male intimacy as offensive in the first place.”
Christian Caryl at the New York Review of Books: ”In perhaps the most bitter irony of all, the filmmakers have managed to transform the real Turing, vivacious and forceful, into just the sort of mythological gay man, whiny and weak, that homophobes love to hate. This is indicative of the bad faith underlying the whole enterprise, which is desperate to put Turing in the role of a gay liberation totem but can’t bring itself to show him kissing another man—something he did frequently, and with gusto. … ‘The Imitation Game’ is a film that prefers its gay men decorously disembodied.”
we’ve also seen portrayals of straight men who’ve slept with prostitutes; we don’t see them haggling over the price either, so that’s a silly rejoinder.)
yes, we very often do. it’s a very rare movie about sex workers today that doesn’t pragmatically address the issue of money — its often a central plot point. And that’s fine. But The Imitation Game is not a movie about sex or hustlers. it’s a movie about Alan Turing’s genius and it’s about his persecution.
Christian Caryl saw a different movie than I did.. In The Imitation Game, nothing about Alan Turing was weak, nothing about Alan Turing was whiny.
Jeff Wells can propagate a sleazy lie and say Selma painted LBJ as a racist — but it’s only a dumb lie. Christian Caryl can lie and say The Imitation Game paints Alan Turing as a “whiny and weak” but that’s another a dumb lie.
WW, c’mon, you saw the movie, you know it scene by scene. Tell me where the movie made Alan Turing look “whiny and weak.” Ridiculous assertion.
Some of these complaints about The Imitation Game not being gay enough remind me if the complaints about Brokeback Mountain not being about a happy gay relationship.
The adage ‘leave them wanting more’ is often a good one for movies. I think it is the organically taut and deft direction and writing and of course the great acting that makes this movie a contender. It isn’t flashy; it is somewhat conventional, but i too, Ryan, enjoy their pace; their take; their execution of a series of ideas. Like good editing, being subtle is a plus. The writing here felt like a good mix of exposition, character and mood. I can see why it has the big 4 for Oscar – BP/BD/BA/BScreen; but not sure why BAFTA didn’t include Tyldum in their final 5.
I came away feeling very sad for the generations of men and women who did not feel they could either speak or have their truth in regards to their sexual preference. It may seem like worlds away, but the ‘it’ gets better’ days are still fraught for some folk finding their truth unpalatable or unacceptable to others. I too would have preferred not to have a discordantly placed scene in the movie just to prove – yes Turing was gay and he did the beats or payed for sex or had a clandestine affair. I felt his buttoned down life; his conflict. Anymore than that would have made it either a different story or a Gone with the wind epic length movie.
that would have made it either a different story or a Gone with the wind epic length movie.
daveinprogress, that’s a really important consideration for me too. I thought the pacing of The Imitation Game was just right. Watching the pendulum of Turing’s arc sweep back and forth from past, to present, to future, to present, to past was handled like a graceful waltz pushing and pulling us along as it gently revealed fresh bits of essential information with each transit. That structure, to me, was one of the best and most deftly articulated things about The Imitation Game, and I think that’s why film editors have been impressed, as well.
So it’s easy enough to say, “I wish the movie has done this or that in addition to what it already did,” but I’m never the kind of moviegoer who likes to prescribe or advise filmmakers on how to “fix” or improve their films. They do what they want to do. I either like it or else I don’t. But I would never recommend to any director or writer to stuff their creation with added scenes trying to make everybody happy.
It’s a competed work of art. Whatever someone wants to add to make it “better” will almost certainly make it “worse” for other viewers. It’s the height of presumption to insist a movie “needed to do more” when millions of other people already love it just the way it is.
”Alan Turing did not flaunt his relationship with Alan Murray for ANYBODY TO EVER SEE.”
Spoilers ahead! … Um, the movie shows MANY things that NEVER happened: like Turing naming his machine after a boyhood crush; like being the first man to crack the Enigma Code (he wasn’t; the Polish cracked it first); like creating the Enigma machine by himself (he collaborated with mathematician Gordon Welchman, who is nowhere to be seen in the movie); like being blackmailed by a Soviet spy (never happened); like the final scene of the film, where he’s visited by Joan, after Turing’s been chemically treated (another invention by Moore).
At least , Turing’s relationship with Arnold Murray was something REAL. Since ”Imitation Game” takes so many liberties with fictional encounters that never happened, it’s not too much to expect even a fleeing glimpse of one that DID. Nor do I think that a scene of two men showing affection is automatically ”’salacious.” Depending how it’s done, it could’ve been beautiful, sensitive and respectful to Turing. And if revealing Turing’s relationship with Murray was a ”gross invasion” of his privacy, why did the film include it at all? To show that Turing did this incredible heroic act to save his nation, but was persecuted by that same nation simply for being gay. I’m pretty certain that if Turing were straight and had had a girlfriend, the movie would’ve found room for a scene of the two of them snuggling and it wouldn’t have been ”salacious.” But because it concerns 2 men, no, let’s NOT show that! Ewww!
The Hollywood Reporter: ‘The Imitation Game’ finally plays the gay card
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/oscars-imitation-game-finally-plays-767466
it’s not too much to expect even a fleeing glimpse of one that DID happen…. Depending how it’s done, it could’ve been beautiful, sensitive and respectful to Turing.
Yes, we could have been treated to a scene of Alan Turing giving money to an underclass teenager in exchange for sex, because that’s another thing that DID happen.
A scene like that would not phase me at all, but I can understand why Tyldum and Moore decided not to go down that road. Choosing to only show the lovely afterglow and not addressing the gay-for-pay aspect would seem disingenuous. For me, that would have felt as bad or worse to me than not dealing with any explicit scenes at all.
I’m sure there were moments between Turing and Murray that were “beautiful and respectful” but to include such a scene and then leave out the scene where Turing pays Murray in cold hard cash for sharing that moment with him would probably leave more mixed feelings in the minds of many moviegoers than the director and writer were willing to trade away to make gay people happy
Glad I got the movie I wanted; sorry you didn’t.
One thing that makes me sincerely very sad, though, — and I say this with no trace of snide — I hate to hear that The Imitation Game made you feel like the filmmakers act like “it’s shameful to show two men in love.” I’m sad and sorry that you didn’t come away from the film feeling the exact opposite takeaway from such a dignified and compassionate portrayal, as I did.
Not necessarily having sex, but having an emotional relationship with someone. The choice he made to give that up for the sake of work would highlight what kind of devotion he has to his scientific creation.
Interesting argument about respecting someone’s “privacy” while making a movie about their life. Why then is the crush on some school boy not private?
I don’t want to see Turing having sex with another guy. I just want to see Cumberbatch having simulated sex, period. j/k. I think it would be more tragic to see someone who chooses to be castrated so that he can continue to work, IF we see him as a sexual being. The sacrifice would be more felt. The Imitation Game presents Turing like an asexual being, so when the news comes that he chooses to be castrated, viscerally I feel “um, so what?”
Interesting discussion, Ryan et al. I went into the movie with a preconceived criticism that the movie would gloss over Turing’s sexuality. While it didn’t overtly explore it, choosing to show his early crush/love interest, which i identified with and appreciated, it certainly showed a bitter irony that a man who saved so many lives, was traumatised and tortured for his sexual preference. The reality of being vulnerable to blackmail, and worse, incarceration certainly is reflected in Moore’s treatment of Turing’s desires and internal suppression,. Before seeing, it, i was influenced by some commenters here that the movie needed to be more cognisant of his sexuality; but having now seen it, I don’t look to this movie for my fix of out and proud GLBT characters and stories. There’s a plethora of other movies to embrace for that. But I get that The Imitation Game is a frontrunner for major awards and so is the focal point for an undying expectation that our community (the LGBT populus) be seen and heard in the culture.
P.S. Turing reportedly was not ashamed of being gay. His circle of friends knew it. And when he was arrested for ”gross indecency,” Turing didn’t think there should be anything wrong with it.
”The Imitation Game” wants to celebrate Alan Turing as a gay hero, and its Oscar campaign proclaims that he needs to be remembered because he was a code-breaking genius who was ”persecuted for his sexuality.” Yes, he can suffer from chemical castration, and SAY he’s been with men, but the movie doesn’t want to SHOW Turing doing anything gay, or that might make any straight viewers uncomfortable. Again, no one is asking to turn ”The Imitation Game” into gay porn, but Turing WAS arrested for ”gross indecency.” It wouldn’t have been out of place to have ONE scene, even a fleeting one, between Turing and the young guy he was hooking up with. There’s even a scene of the young guy at the police station, but we never see him and Turing together. By keeping those two off-camera, the movie reinforces the idea that it’s shameful to show two men in love, and in 2015, that’s so timid and reactionary.
Meantime, Moore is accepting the USC Scripter Award, which also goes to Andrew Hodges, who wrote the celebrated Turing bio that Moore adapted. And Hodges is on record as saying that he was ”alarmed” by the many ”historical inaccuracies” in the script, but that’s a whole other ball of wax.
There’s even a scene of the young guy at the police station, but we never see him and Turing together. By keeping those two off-camera, the movie reinforces the idea that it’s shameful to show two men in love, and in 2015, that’s so timid and reactionary.
By keeping those two off-camera, for me, the movie reinforces the idea that nobody knew about the relationship between Alan Turing and Arnold Murray except for Alan Turing and Arnold Murray — until the cops invaded his privacy with their salacious need to snoop around and find out exactly what he was up to.
Whether or not Alan Turing was open about being gay to his friends (and, yes, he was), Alan Turing did not flaunt his relationship with Alan Murray for ANYBODY TO EVER SEE. (because, no, he never did that.)
The relationship was “uncovered” thanks to a gross salacious invasion of Turing’s PRIVACY, so it’s fine with me if Graham Moore chose not to add any further gross salacious invasions of Turing’s privacy for no other reason that to give millions of moviegoers a chance to watch him snuggle with another guy.
Not only is it fine with me, I think the choice accords Turing the same respectful privacy that was violated 50 years ago and ruined his life.*
Dear ghost of Alan Turing, I apologize on behalf of everyone who wants to turn a tribute to your achievements into a juicy occasion to swap your lifelong circumspect discretion for a peep show.
*(Not only is Moore’s choice fine with me, it’s apparently fine with the USC Scripter panel who are no amateur moralizers when it comes to their distinguished reputations as some of the finest writers, film scholars and filmmakers on earth.)
Haven’t seen “The Babadook” yet–tell me it includes the line, “Nobody puts Babadook in a corner!”
I must disagree about Flynn being robbed. I thought the book started well, but I lost interest by midpoint because I had no reason to care for or be interested in the characters. I didn’t think the movie did anything special, other than putting the book reasonably faithfully on the screen. I realize we all have a range of opinions about it, but it’s not a given truth that it was an outstanding script and that failure to give it the Scripter reinstates patriarchy for eternity. That’s just silly and grandiose to me.
I have my own issues about the script of “The Imitation Game,” mainly ones of historical accuracy (milder but similar in form to my issues with the way in which “Selma” rewrote the historical LBJ in ways I found unconscionable–and, yes, I know it wasn’t intended as a documentary, but distorting history in recent memory is a dangerous and ethically problematic area–at least with Shakespeare’s Richard III, we have enough distance to understand why Shakespeare made Richard the villain he did–and I don’t think the script for “Selma” bears comparison with Shakespeare). I’m not part of the lunatic fringe that sees the director as a “white hater”–that’s just racism of a high level, but it is true that she and the writer wanted to tell the story in a particular way, and that way does not jibe with what people still alive and sentient know to be the truth. The actual story of Selma–and the courage and power of the black people who made it a signal event in the history of our nation was sufficient–why the need to diminish the contribution of LBJ?
With “The Imitation Game,” I just wish they hadn’t felt the need to change the biographical or historical details, as such changes always make a film more vulnerable to groups that wish to credit it on ideological grounds (i.e. homophobes). Things like mucking around with the Keira Knightly character or the semi-invention (I gather) of the Soviet mole makes it seem as if the film is trying to inflate Turning’s narrative or misdirect the audience in some way. Turing was an extraordinary man, a true hero, and tragically destroyed by the country he helped to save. I enjoyed the film a lot on its own terms and actually think Cumberbatch had a greater acting challenge than Redmayne (if we are comparing our 20th century British disabled heroes–I see Turing as neuroatypical, probably today diagnosable as on the AS). As a gay man (and having seen Derek Jacobi on Broadway playing Turing in “Breaking the Code” almost thirty years ago), I never felt the film was trying to cover up Turning’s homosexuality–the scenes at school clearly show the emerging queer boy-man for whom other males would always be the object or romantic-erotic desire. I think one would have to work hard not to leave the film knowing that Turing was a gay man. And, since I haven’t yet read Hodges’ biography, I don’t how much we have on record of whatever relationships Turing had with other men. Given the times, they may have been furtive and primarily for sexual release. Why make that–other than simply stating it–any more a part of the film than it was.
Well, I’m not disturbed by The Imitation Game’s script winning at all. I don’t know if it will win the Oscar but it will probably get the BAFTA.
“Cute how you seem to believe the Academy is stupid for nominating Inherent Vice but smart for snubbing Gone Girl. Stupid or smart? Make up your mind. ”
It’s the Academy. There’s always an amazing combination of both. I thought you would know this by now.
It’s the Academy. There’s always an amazing combination of both. I thought you would know this by now.
good point, Hawkeye. You got me fair and square.
I hope you know that I’m always saying the Academy is a crazy blend of hundreds of certified geniuses and hundreds of certified nincompoops.
We disagree about the relative value of Gone Girl and Inherent Vice compared to other nominees for adapted screenp;ay.
I think it’s no surprise and no secret that I wish Gone Girl and Inherent Vice had BOTH been nominated for an Oscar, but (for me) the nincompoop faction of the Academy voted to nominate American Sniper instead.
Sorry about that, Hawkeye. You cornered me. You’re right.
(you’re right because you made me say what I’ve always said)
🙂
my five favorite English language films of the year
Boyhood
Gone Girl
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Inherent Vice
Selma
I love them all so much, alphabetical is the only way I know how to list them
List expanded to 15?
Boyhood
Calvary
Foxcatcher
Gone Girl
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Imitation Game
Inherent Vice
Interstellar
Locke
A Most Violent Year
Mr Turner
Nightcrawler
Selma
Snowpiercer
Under the Skin
(still alphabetical because I’m exhausted from getting in trouble with good friends on this page)
😐
Well said, Ryan. I agree with everything you’ve written in this thread.
As for Gone Girl, LOVED the movie. But its not the type of movie (or story) that typically wins awards for Writing. I think thats what hurt it most of all.
Outstanding news! I was wondering when others were going to start realizing that the screenplay to Gone Girl just wasn’t that good. That is, besides the Academy, who rightfully snubbed it. Though they did nominate the screenplay for one of the worst films of the year, Inherent Vice, and one of the most overrated movies of the year, American Sniper, so who knows what they were thinking. Anyways, it’s good to see Imitation Game take the clear lead for the Adapted Screenplay Oscar (it was just speculation before, but now we have some solid evidence).
I was wondering when others were going to start realizing that the screenplay to Gone Girl just wasn’t that good.
Sorry, if you’re looking validation of your belief that “Gone Girl wasn’t that good” then you should go pile on with the Flynn-bashers in some other post about some other group that didn’t CONFIRM the excellence of Flynn’s work by naming it one of the 5 best screenplays of the year.
Cute how you seem to believe the Academy is stupid for nominating Inherent Vice but smart for snubbing Gone Girl. Stupid or smart? Make up your mind.
Or hey, maybe Inherent Vice got ONE MORE VOTE than Gone Girl. (Entirely reaslistically possible). So go find the person who filled out THAT BALLOT. He’s the stupid one. Or maybe he just has different taste than you do. Probably that.
I thought Graham Moore’s script was one of the film’s strengths and possibly why it has been among the best of the year. Cumbebatch creates a memorable screen presence and the ensemble is strong. yes it is not cutting edge cinema, but as a ‘good yarn’, based on actual events, it exceeded my expectations, in part due to so much commentary about the inclusion.exclusion of his sexual preference and sex life. At the end of the film, i was moved, and I thought the script was taut, informative and entertaining. That said, the exclusion of Gillian Flynn from the competition is just wrong. Wrong wrong. I know it will never happen but would love to see a David Hyde Pierce moment at the Oscars where the winner acknowledges his fellow nominees and intentionally mentions the non nominated Flynn, as Hyde Pierce did with Sean Hayes. Great and progressive work needs to at the very least be celebrated if not actually rewarded.
Great and progressive work needs to at the very least be celebrated
worth noting, maybe: even though I 100% agree that the Writers Branch of the Academy blew it by not nominating Gillian Flynn, the USC Scripter committee DID nominate her, honoring her screenplay and elevating it above all the other 325 other eligible screenplays of 2014 — The USC Scripter judges put Gone Girl in the top 1% of all screenplays produced last year. That’s not an insult.
So while I’m absolutely happy and passionate about joining in with all the jeers aimed at the Academy’s bewildering and frustrating oversight, the USC Scripters did exactly what we wanted the Oscars to do: They recognized and celebrated Gillian Flynn for writing one of the 5 best film adaptations of 2014.
They also recognized Andrew Hodges for writing one of the finest biographies of a scientist ever published (something we were furious about when they failed to pay the same tribute to Doris Kearns Goodwin). And USC’s distinguished panel of experts seem to totally understood the reasons Graham Moore created fictionalized elements that do not conform to historical facts, while still brilliantly conveying what kind of man the protagonist was in real life — because That’s What Movies Do — and that’s another thing we have been wishing all year that other (more petty) awards groups would learn to do.
Oh, come on, The Imitation Game was always winning this. Gone Girl never had a prayer. And you KNOW this. And it has nothing to do with sexism. It has everything to do with the kinds of movies the Academy honors. If The LEGO Movie is too crass for them, then certainly Gone Girl is too trashy for them. I’ll never understand how a story about such self-centered characters’ impulsive actions and their navelgazing can arouse such hatred in people for a film as well-made and well-intentioned as Imitation. Imitation’s script is elegant, eloquent, classy, and important. It seamlessly weaves back and forth between the main storyline and Turing’s flashbacks. And it’s funny people are criticizing Gone Girl’s ending. That was the one part I really, really liked — the ambiguity it left behind, and what it says about marriage. Everything before that was just dimestore revenge fantasy, though through it all, Pike is very good and instantly iconic.
…Everything before that was just dimestore revenge fantasy…
Hey, leave Django Unchained and Inglourious Basterds* out of this.
🙂
*(absurd, trashy, campy, grotesque Oscar-winning Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained)
“emerge from the entire year with the only quotable lines from any screenplay”
Am I reading this wrong? Are you genuinely suggesting that Gone Girl had the only quotable lines from any film in 2014? That’s overstating things a bit, no?
Selected quotes from 2014. One quote per film:
“I just thought there would be more” – Boyhood
“If you want to win the lottery, you have to make the money to buy a ticket” – Nightcrawler
“Not my tempo!” – Whiplash
“You can’t get rid of The Babadook!” – The Babadook
“I’m afraid that’s me, darling” – The Grand Budapest Hotel
“You’re doing this because you’re scared to death, like the rest of us, that you don’t matter. And you know what? You’re right. You don’t.” – Birdman
“Everything is awesome!” – The Lego Movie
Ryan, you get nasty a lot of the time for no reason.
Were you confused about whether Margaret Thatcher was straight in the The Iron Lady? They never show her sucking any dicks, right?
Is that remotely appropriate? No it isn’t. I said
It seemed like they couldn’t decide if they wanted him to be gay or not so they started off just making it about enigma.
That means that it seemed to me that the people who made it, perhaps it was in the script, I do not know, were starting off maybe making an even more sensitized version than the finished product. How does that say that I was confused about whether he was gay or not or that I, or anyone else, needed more graphic material to understand that? To me the film is uneven because since they didn’t get into his personal life, you would think they would have ignored the whole part about the chemical castration. But then having that in the end when they didn’t get into his emotional life at all before that made it seem tacked on.
But now, I’m even more confused, maybe he was just British.
To me the film is uneven because since they didn’t get into his personal life, you would think they would have ignored the whole part about the chemical castration.
Why do we need them “to get into his personal life” before they can legitimately spend literally 25% of the whole movie detailing the specifics of his legal persecution? What part of “his personal life” did you need to see? Turing kissing a guy? Why? What did you need? and WHY?
The movie tells us that 49,000 men were persecuted in the UK for being gay since 1885. The reason the movie is not about one of those OTHER gay guys is because most of those other gay guys failed to change the world the way Alan Turing did.
So, I think it’s perfectly ok to spend 75% of the movie detailing Alan Turning’s ASTONISHING ACCOMPLISHMENTS and 25% of the running time telling us EVERYTHING we need to know about the specifics of his persecution.
The movie is not about Alan Turing being gay. We know that. And for those who didn’t know it, part of the point is how it’s nobody’s fucking business whether he was gay — until he wants to tell somebody.
The movie is not about Alan Turing being gay. It’s about his persecution for being gay.
Fine if it felt unbalanced to you. It felt perfectly balanced to me.
But then having that in the end when they didn’t get into his emotional life at all
Not counting the 25 minutes that elegantly explored the heartbreaking details of Turing’s own emotional life, grappling with coming to terms with his sexuality when he was in school.
25 minutes of Heartbreaking Gay Coming of Age Story.
25 minutes of Devastating Legal Persecution for Being Gay Tragedy.
50 minutes of Winning World War II by Being a Gay Genius Suspense.
But the movie is “not gay enough” for some people. Not “emotional” enough.
“But then having that in the end…”
yeesh
It was not “at the end”
It was interwoven and virtually braided throughout the entire movie with dozens of intricately dovetailed flashbacks and flashforwards.
Damn, this is a real head scratcher. I just utterly fail to understand the draw of this film.
I’m so pleased that The Imitation Game won. It’s made my day. I love the taste of sour grapes!
She just didn’t do a good job. That’s all. We all remember the rumors about a new ending. Affleck talked about a “whole new third act”. And then? Then we had the same awful ending as the book. She wasn’t brave enough to change it. And that’s what she got: no oscar nomination. Well deserved. She learnt a good lesson.
Playing into the disturbing commentary that has emerged in the wake of the backlash to the Academy’s dismissal of women in so many categories this year. Disgusting.
The Imitation Game is one of the most didactic, coarse, immature, conventional, trite, graceless screenplays of the year. The film itself is only as mediocre as it is because of Morten Tyldum and Harvey Weinstein – had it followed in the same vein of quality as Graham Moore’s risible script, it’d be one of the worst films of the year.
She just didn’t do a good job. That’s all. We all remember the rumors about a new ending. Affleck talked about a “whole new third act”. And then? Then we had the same awful ending as the book. She wasn’t brave enough to change it. And that’s what she got: no oscar nomination. Well deserved. She learnt a good lesson.
Antoinette, I actually liked that in The Imitation Game they put enigma in the center. At least that way, you got a feeling of Turing’s accomplishments and his work. I didn’t get that feeling from The Theory of Everything at all. It doesn’t make sense that the best depiction about Stephen Hawking’s work in a movie this year was Interstellar. The “science” in The Theory of Everything was so over-romanticized and childish I felt like I was watching the scene in The Lion King where Timon, Pumba and Simba are looking at the stars. “With you, everything’s gas”
Warning: Spoilers ahead.
I have watched both films, and while I initially rooted for Gone Girl as it progressed, right after Neil’s character got killed, the story just fell apart for me. I just think the story sought to serve the mystery drama more than anything else, in the end completely lowering its merit. The villain ends up getting more power than is helpful in getting an overall appreciation of the story. This is really where I fell out with Gone Girl, though I think BD nom and BE would have been fitting. This for me, despite its shortcoming, is the one Fincher film I can hold up as encapsulating of his brilliance. His fine touch ran throughout the movie, as opposed to say The Social Network, which I would assume because of the material – formal education at an Ivy League – came off as a bit too formulaic.
As for the Imitation Game, it is simply benefiting from a stronger, more emotionally resonant story. I didn’t completely gush over it, but it is to me a much better film than Gone Girl, story taken into account. Script was not completely uniform, even Alan Turing’s characterization jumped around a bit, but it ends on such a strong emotional point you cannot help but acknowledge its ambition. No surprise at picking Best Screenplay with the USC whatever. It is the best of the best this year, whether you think it merits a 5/10 or 8/10 grade. It came across the strongest.
Also, am I the only one who thought Mark Strong’s performance should have been pushed harder for BSA nod. His complete omission from the conversation reminded me of last year when all awards focus on Blue Jasmine was on Cate Blanchett, so much that they not only missed a BP nom they surely deserved, but left a brilliant Sally Hawkins on shaky ground as the nomination period closed. At least she got in though, actually thought her the strongest contender of the bunch.
I didn’t like THE IMITATION GAME. It seemed like they couldn’t decide if they wanted him to be gay or not so they started off just making it about enigma. Then they figured they should tack on the part at the end so that people would know they were supposed to feel something for the guy.
they started off just making it about enigma. Then they figured they should tack on the part at the end so that people would know they were supposed to feel something for the guy.
so, sort of exactly like the arc of Alan Turing’s real-life experience then
they couldn’t decide if they wanted him to be gay or not
I saw a different version of the movie where they never left a shred of doubt that Alan Turing was gay. They just decided to cut the scenes of anal sex. probably to get PG-13 rating.
Were you confused about whether Margaret Thatcher was straight in the The Iron Lady? They never show her sucking any dicks, right? So how do we know she was straight? I need explicit movie proof.
If THE IMITATION GAME wins, it will be the worst Screenplay Oscar winner since CRASH. It’s Alan Turing for the BIG BANG THEORY generation, a closeted gay man for heterosexuals. It’s the kind of script that impresses voters because the writer had to do some reading, this time on difficult science. GONE GIRL had everything going against it, not least that I think that screenwriters like to think that novelists fail at adapting their own novels. Fincher is starting to look lik, the Scorsese of the RAGING BULL-GOODFELLAS period–too edgy, dark, and strong for the Academy. Had this been a different kind of year, and GONE GIRL had strong critics’ awards support, the Academy would have felt pressure to nominate it, at least. But lacking that, it acted out its obvious dislike. I wonder how Rosamund Pike got in. Yes, I know it was a weak year for lead actresses, but tell that to Amy Adams and Jennifer Aniston.
What a weak win. Would have been happy to see Flynn or Anderson take this one
I really don’t think this was a great year for writing. That said, Imitation Game beat Boyhood and Birdman? Imitation Game made an interesting story and character extremely conventional. The film was made and backed for Oscar recognition. Pure and simple. Uninspired choice. If anything, this should be a place to reward someone not being recognized or on the awards radar. But everyone wants to be part of Oscar sigh.
Ditto, Rob Y. The Imitation Game’s script doesn’t go smoothly, it relies too much on its one-liners and it is too cliched for my taste.
Urgh! I loved The Imitation Game, but I felt its weakest link was the script. Extremely conventional.
Yeah, I don’t follow you over the Selma snubs, but I understand you being upset over this one. The Imitation Game is definitely not a better screenplay than Gone Girl.