This is the thread where we discuss matters pertaining to the detrius that accompanies the "End of the Year in Cinema" -- 2022

the Menu got totally shut out, which is lame considering fucking Avatar and Top Gun got nominated for best picture.

Some trivia:

-John Williams, at 90, is now the oldest-ever Oscar nominee, for The Fablemans score (was James Ivory, 89, for Call Me by Your Name script)

-Judd Hirsch has the longest gap between nominations, at 42 years between Ordinary People and The Fablemans (was Henry Fonda, 41 years between The Grapes of Wrath and On Golden Pond)

the Menu got totally shut out, which is lame considering fucking Avatar and Top Gun got nominated for best picture.

Something I kept meaning to post somewhere -- I was really intrigued/surprised to see that The Menu had massive legs, at least in my neck of the woods. End of the year at my local Alamo was essentially only Avatar, Babylon (which had just gotten released) and The Menu, and in the latter case we're talking multiple screenings a day throughout the day. All the other November films of any stripe, big or small, were long gone.

I did sort of think The Menu might land a surprise screenplay nomination, but alas

Surprised She Said didn't get picture/screenplay/actress nominations

Its overall chances faded quite a while ago. It probably had the best shot at a screenplay nomination, and might've gotten it if not for the All Quiet on the Western Front momentum.

The Menu's been playing at Miami multiplexes since Thanksgiving. Several students have watched it, which, given their usual inclinations, surprised me.

(xpost) Besides just the fact that I liked it, I would have thought it nicely fits Hollywood's and the Academy Awards' eagerness to embrace self-flagellation (A Star Is Born, Sunset Boulevard, The Player, etc., etc.).

There's plenty of alternatives this (and every year) ... on a related note, big LOL at Women Talking getting into best picture with one single other nomination

xp I liked it, too. After its release, there was a weird amount of focus on its disappointing box-office numbers, which may have stifled its campaign.

We're in a world where The Menu, at something like $38M in domestic grosses, is considered a "success"

Neither of my kids have seen Top Gun or Avatar, but one of them has seen The Menu twice.

The Menu depends on you hating rich people enough to ignore that the movie is dumb and doesn't make sense; seems to be working.

idk it's also funny

I would have enjoyed The Menu a lot more if it had been dumber tbh

A lot of handwringing these days over what even is satire

i think more than a send-up of the rich or whatever it's a depiction of how hollow any artform becomes once its reached a rarified enough air that its audience is snobs, dilettantes, and people with so much money they don't care about what they're consuming. a good companion piece with pig which people also found dumb and nonsensical so fair enough. nicholas hault gives a perfectly abhorrent performance and i love the scene where he has to make his own dish and it sucks ass

it's not on my year-end list or anything but idk, it was fun, i loled

for a minute I srsly thought you were writing about Triangle of Sadness, lol

brad otm

“Rich people are deluded and stupid” is the plot du jour for sure, so much that films are forgetting to move to step two

Which is to say I saw a preview screening of When You’re Done Saving the World. Eisenberg likely has a good movie in him but this isn’t it

Yeah, Brad otm. I thought the fact that they were rich was almost incidental. It's a broader (in every sense) critique of a class of people that includes but is not limited to the rich. I mean, there's no real indication that Hault is necessarily rich, just that this (final) meal is how he chose to prioritize his money. Also worth keeping in the mind that the staff, too, is insane/enthralled, part of the same elitist system that causes the chef to snap (albeit in the most snobby, elitist way).

Apparently I'll give almost any satire the comparative benefit of the doubt. I didn't even hate Don't Look Up, in its entirety.

it was entertaining enough for a night at the movies but i thought it was trying to punch way above its weight with what it was Trying To Say, i found the critiques unsatisfying and not v coherent (in other words nothocked to see Adam McKay's name in the credits.) overall a lot less fun than a movie about a homicidal haute cuisine chef should have been. would have been much more enjoyable and a sharper satire imo if it had let itself be a blumhouse b movie about wealthy people getting offed one by one in creative restaurant-related ways. isnt there some famous saying about what should be done with the rich?

I think that's the movie many expected.

TIL that any and every sequel or pseudo-sequel can get nominated only for Best Adapted Screenplay, not Best Original Screenplay.

I've had a couple friends prefer The Menu to Tar among rich-privileged-people-are-bastards movies. The latter, I guess, makes its obvious points in a crisper way; it's obvious why it's the far bigger hit.

The latter or the former?

Ha! The Menu, sorry.

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BYjdjZDczYWYtZjU5Ny00ZTY1LTg5YTItY2FiMzM0MzZkOWM4XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjUyNDk2ODc@._V1_.jpg

^^^ I've wanted to watch that one for years

you might need a trigger warning if you are a dog owner!

pics of Robert Morley make me smile

https://i.imgur.com/QCDSrvv.png

The Menu was very enjoyable and completely ridiculous and made no sort of sense and I enjoyed it a great deal and thought it made some decent points (and a few very glib ones) - I went into the cinema with no expectations and walked out thinking "what the fuck have I just seen?" and sometimes that's more than enough.

THE MENU sucked, prestige TV ass bullshit

also brad the overwhelming consensus about the cheeseburger is that it looked really awesome

Have not seen The Menu, but I enjoyed Triangle of Sadness. Sure, it makes obvious points about class and wealth, but the characters are fun, and the narrative is artfully constructed.

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE FOR BEST EDITING BABYYYYYYYYYYYY https://t.co/5HxKVjVvMT

— Michael Christie 🦑🧲🐸🦛 (@mschristie587) January 24, 2023

I expected the Menu to be much dumber than it was, because I didn't think the marketing for it was very good. I was pleasantly surprised by the performances in it which were across the board excellent. I'm surprised to hear that anyone else may have thought Pig was dumb though, that was also one of my favorite movies of the previous year and one that I thought was really overlooked at awards season.

I think I prefer the Menu to Triangle of Sadness, in the end.

sure

Still haven't seen most of the films discussed here, including Triangle of Sadness, which I'm looking forward to. The Menu doesn't interest me as much

RRR was fun, but was way too long for what it was

thought this was an interesting article

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/24/dining/noma-fruit-beetle-fine-dining.html

Kind of agree with this deleted Peter Labuza tweet:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FnQDYu4aEAQO9aX?format=jpg&name=900x900

It's been a long time since I saw Eternal Sunshine, and I suspect that I might not love it as much as I did when I was 25. It's also not exactly the same movie, obviously.

But my main complaint about EEAAO is that the emotional thread felt kind of flimsy and obscured by the whizbang multiverse stuff rather than enhanced by it. I was rooting for the family in a general sense, but the characters and relationships weren't nuanced or grounded enough to give it much emotional payoff at the end.

I very much do not agree with that.

yeah the key to the movie for me was how detailed and true to life the family relationships were, just on a personal basis it seemed like a kind of life I know personally and haven't seen represented at all.

agh, too many personals, but just the everyday struggle to keep on top of life and the chaos and constant worry that things are falling apart, the striving to provide and taking care of older relatives, and people are not cool or confident or sassy, they're all only just about holding it together in their own ways and are unable to easily empathise with each other even though we're all in the same boat, because we're too busy dealing with our own shit, that speech about emotional strength is exactly the one I've tried to have with my wife so many times - and seeing all of this represented not as a dour drama that nobody will see but as a mainstream movie everyone is watching, it's just one of the best things that happened in 2022.

Lydia Tár belittled a pangender BIPOC student. She groomed young women. One of them committed suicide.

This morning she got multiple Oscar nominations. Please tell me again how cancel culture is real.

— Nick Newman (@Nick_Newman) January 24, 2023

Keep the bad tweets coming

There's a segment of Film Twitter that's so irony-poisoned it's stifling (I know this is not exclusive to Film Twitter).

agh, too many personals, but just the everyday struggle to keep on top of life and the chaos and constant worry that things are falling apart, the striving to provide and taking care of older relatives, and people are not cool or confident or sassy, they're all only just about holding it together in their own ways and are unable to easily empathise with each other even though we're all in the same boat, because we're too busy dealing with our own shit, that speech about emotional strength is exactly the one I've tried to have with my wife so many times - and seeing all of this represented not as a dour drama that nobody will see but as a mainstream movie everyone is watching, it's just one of the best things that happened in 2022.

― Camaraderie at Arms Length, Wednesday, January 25, 2023 1:14 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Would love to see this movie without all the "Marvel bullshit."

Yeah but that approach could be its own problem. I said this on FB in a thread about the film yesterday:

...(imagine if) it kept the same general cast and setting it could have in other hands and in other times been nothing more than a vaguely worthy Oscar-bait drama, one that Hollywood would use to pat itself on the back that they're 'telling these stories now' -- a very 90s kind of nominee in turn, maybe the space (from lack of multiverse etc) would have been filled in with a 'wacky but loveable' laundry patron with a catchphrase or two, etc. etc. Maybe it could work that way, maybe it would be just dull.

And I'll add now I'm willing to believe it would be very earnest and very dull that way! That Daniels are clearly incredibly visually oriented by default is a major plus.