Movie Master

The Venice Film Festival is over, the Toronto Film Festival is over, the Telluride Film Festival is over... the first wave of awards season has subsided; the New York Film Festival is over, the Independent Spirit Awards are over, and even LA The Film Critics Association and the New York Film Critics Association have also wrapped up ... the second wave of awards season has also died down.

In a blink of an eye, half of November has passed. The National Board of Review Awards and the North American Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards have announced their nomination lists. There is not much time left until the announcement of the Golden Globe Awards nominees. The season has come to people with vigor and vitality, but the bustling and lively atmosphere of previous years has not come for a long time. The major media are not in a hurry to announce a popular debut in the awards season, and the major film companies are not in a hurry to announce a certain award season. Word of mouth of a certain work is booming, and even Hollywood's internal previews and private parties seem to have disappeared. This kind of dull atmosphere really makes people uncomfortable.

In previous years, the Weinstein brothers have always been able to grab a lot of attention, and the works under their operation can always play an important role in the awards season-both in the nomination stage and the award stage; but this year, the Weinstein brothers After leaving Miramax, and then starting their own business, they missed the best time to exert their strength, and they seemed to be a little low-key.

But even so, the awards season has been formed for nearly ten years, and the huge business opportunities and interests involved in it are unimaginable. After all, the discussions about the works of the awards season are still endless. Although they have not been able to form a storm, they have replaced commercial films. Works with award potential have gradually become people's gossip, but this year's works seem to lack a little explosiveness.

Babel undoubtedly occupies an important part of the topic. This work has landed at the Cannes Film Festival as early as May and has received a lot of praise. It has successively filmed Love is a bitch and 21 Grams. Director Alejandro Gonzalez-Inarritu has been well-recognized and won the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival in one go, taking the lead in the awards season. Subsequently, this work landed in the Toronto Film Festival and the Telluride Film Festival successively, and returned with acclaim, and is considered to be the hottest work of this year's Oscars.

Tiantian Tower has the same effect as last year's Crash, but it is more profound and delicate. It emphasizes the communication dilemma of human beings, the contradictions and conflicts from different civilizations, different races, and different regions, and magnifies the weakness and struggle of human nature. to the extreme. The star lineup led by Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett is the icing on the cake, giving the work an inherent advantage in the minds of the audience.

It is worth mentioning that this is Brad's first work since last year's Operation Smith, and it is also his first official appearance after Cheating Door with Angelina Jolie. As expected, according to the arrangement of public relations strategy, Brad chose an independent art film to make a comeback. Putting aside all the star's lead, he devoted himself to the performance of the actors and spoke with his strength.

What's even more amazing is that there are rumors in the circle that the reason why Brad took over the work of Babel is because he and Angelina's daughter who was just born in May this year, most of his roles in Babel They are all concerned about the family and children, and Brad's doting and concern for his daughter prompted him to nod and agree to the invitation. As a result, Brad's loving father image spread like wildfire. At the same time, the main reason for the divorce between Brad and Jennifer-Aniston also has a new story, Jennifer is unwilling to have children for him .

At the right time, at the right place, with the right strategy, before he knew it, Brad was once again back in the public eye, and he got rid of the image of a cheating man and became a man who put all his thoughts on children. The Family Man. After being silent for more than eighteen months, Brad Pitt, the sexy symbol of a generation, has successfully turned himself around.

Although it received a lot of praise at the film festival, the shortcomings of Babel Tower are also very obvious. The first is that it is too crafty. The director Alejandro has played with all kinds of martial arts, but it leads to the structure of the story. It is too loose, which undoubtedly hinders the sublimation of the core idea; the second is that the form is greater than the content, the editing is too strong, and the carving marks are very obvious, like a kaleidoscope, which looks full of flowers, but in fact it is just a few simple graphics. The idea of ​​the film is undoubtedly worthy of recognition, but unfortunately the presentation is limited, and the depth of excavation is also embarrassing.

The film was screened in New York and Los Angeles in the fourth week of October, and started the journey to meet the audience, but the media review was only a disappointing 69 points. It can be seen that the North American media is very enthusiastic about Babel Tower. The attitude is still somewhat reserved.

Despite this, in this year's somewhat dull awards season, Babel, which has the advantages of star cast, Cannes best director, and international film festival affirmation, still shows a certain momentum of winning awards, temporarily occupying the The position of the focus of discussion; corresponding to the slow rise of The Departed.

The Departed has attracted countless attentions from the production stage. Martin Scorsese's masterpiece brought together two years after The Aviator brought together Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt -Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg and other big-name stars can be described as star-studded.

The film cast aside the burden of awards season, and operates as a commercial film. It was fully released in the first week of October, and good news came. The North American box office of 132 million, compared to the investment of 90 million, is a little tepid, but the outstanding performance of the overseas box office made Warner Bros. smile; It is sent to an advantageous position, and many professional film critics believe that this may not be Martin's best work, but it is Martin's most mature work. It won a lot of applause for its excellent entertainment, excellent storytelling and good thinking.

As we all know, Martin is considered to be one of the most famous legacy of Oscar. Works such as Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, and Goodfellas are all absolute classics worthy of being recorded in history, but so far Martin has not Being able to reap the affirmation of a statuette, among the four directors in the 1980s, in addition to George Lucas who focused on technological innovation, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola They have already won Oscar statuettes, and Martin has been searching for them for more than 30 years, but it is still rare to win one. Many people compare Martin with masters like Alfred Hitchcock and Charlie Chaplin. They are equally talented and equally ill-fated.

Two years ago, The Aviator was hailed as a love letter to Oscar, but it suffered a merciless blow; two years later, The Departed Walker debuted as a commercial movie, but brought unexpected surprise. The calls for Martin to compete for the best director Oscar suddenly soared.

Objectively speaking, as a commercial film, The Departed naturally lacks artistic value, which is also the biggest shortcoming of the work, but the film shows the unique cultural style and historical background of the Boston area, and discusses the discussion of human nature and fatal tragedy. After a little taste, there is still a little aftertaste.

In terms of overall momentum, The Departed Walker still can't be compared with Babel Tower. The rising momentum is vaguely becoming the biggest competitor of Babel Tower.

Whether it is Tiantian Tower or Infernal Walker, the weaknesses are very obvious, and they have not been able to show the domineering and strength of the top seed player in previous years. Apart from the two works, other works have not been able to show the ability to compete in the overall momentum, and more are only partial flashes, which further weakens the momentum of the awards season.

The last dictatorship that has been affirmed by many at the Toronto Film Festival, the overall quality of the work is average, the script, director, editing, etc. are not brilliant, and the degree of completion can be said to be bad, but Forest Whitaker (Forest-Whitaker)'s performance was highly praised, and many people compared him with last year's Philip Seymour Hoffman and Lancelot Strelow. Forest's performance was magnificent, Both explosive power and delicate feeling make everyone's eyes shine.

In the same way, the same is true for Lost Love. The overall work is lackluster and there are almost no parts worth mentioning, but Peter Otto's performance has won unanimous praise from the audience and film critics. The Toronto Film Festival stood up for 15 minutes. The applause is the only award in Toronto this year. Considering the development curve of Peter's career, many people believe that he can replicate the last miracle of Paul Newman's career as an actor, and win the Oscar winner statuette, drawing a perfect ending.

In addition, niche independent films such as Being a Mother, Thank You for Smoking, Baby Shirley, Return, Half Nelson and so on have received a little attention, but their degree of completion and discussion They are far below the average level, not to mention comparable to last year's Brokeback Mountain and Fruit Candy. ’, ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ and ‘Ms. Potter’ are all on the radar as candidates for awards season, which is no doubt a further sign of the awards season slump because everyone knows , Comedy movies want to enter the Oscar Academy's eyesight, it is difficult to reach the sky, although there are miracles like One Night in history that won the four major Oscar awards, but overall, the situation of comedy movies in the awards season is really embarrassing, The Golden Globe Awards has set up a musical comedy department, which has always been a black spot for people to complain about.

Commercial films lack explosive power, art films lack depth, and even independent films seem to be sluggish this year, which really casts a shadow over the awards season.