Some of them I think suck, but this is dead on:
Captain Phillips: Hey guys, a few years ago, our entire naval fleet took on a band of four dirt-poor pirates floating around with a hostage in a piece-of-shit lifeboat. And I’m happy to report that, in true underdog fashion, we won! FUCK YEAH! AMERICA DEFIES THE ODDS ONCE AGAIN.
That’s EXACTLY what I thought when I heard this movie was being made.
*** Update ***
Reading the comments here, you would think I linked to an actual serious review of the Oscar films. No, I have not seen Captain Phillips, no I am not commenting on what it was like or whether it was good, all I said was THAT WAS EXACTLY WHAT I THOUGHT WHEN I HEARD THE MOVIE WAS BEING MADE.
And you guys are the ones constantly harassing me about reading comprehension.
Baud
Haven’t seen the movie yet, but I had thought it was more of a personal triumph story rather than a nationalistic story.
Bobby Thomson
Heh.
chmatl
Having seen the movie, I thought it did a pretty good job of addressing the reasons that Somali men take to pirating. I did not get an “America, F*ck Yeah” vibe from it at all. Yes, personal triumph figures into it significantly, but so does the hopelessness of people who are very, very poor.
raven
Oh bullshit.
John O
I was clearly in the minority that thought it was a piece of shit. I knew the ending, which I thought was underdone, and I also knew it was highly fictionalized.
I ripped it on FB and was tremendously amused by the response I got.
raven
@John O: What did you think was a piece of shit, the movie, the lifeboat or the stupid statement about “our whole fleet?
raven
@chmatl: Exactly, these people are full of shit.
Mnemosyne
Haven’t seen it, but what I had heard from people who have is that it’s more a story about the relationship that developed between the two men while Phillips was being held hostage and Phillips’s mixed (to say the least) feelings about the way he was rescued. In fact, kind of the opposite of what you said: we brought the entire strength of the American Navy down on these guys?
Craigo
The title wasn’t your first clue that it’s not exactly about “our fleet?” I mean, have you actually watched it? It’s not a great film exactly – but it’s nothing like the graf describes.
Mnemosyne
I’m vacillating on what will win Best Picture, but I really think it’s down to Gravity or 12 Years A Slave. If it’s anything else, I’ll probably be pissed.
Mnemosyne
This line about Nebraska was funny:
Patrick
deleted
BGinCHI
The Oscars are every bit as important as the Grammys.
raven
@Mnemosyne: What IS that shit? It was never a fucking fleet, jesus what stupidity.
srv
Oh, y’all are just so PC.
A month back, someone asked Alan Arkin about truthiness in Argo, and he went on a rant about people like you who think that MOVIES are DOCUMENTARIES.
@Mnemosyne:
Well, Obama had to make an example of somebody. He just didn’t have a Grenada handy.
kbuttle
And Hanks was back in fine form. It didn’t feel jingoistic to me, and did indeed portray some ambivalence from Phillips about how he was rescued, together with enormous relief.
raven
Here’s a cool interactive site on the anti-piracy effort.
Gin & Tonic
OK, so I’m not the only one who hated the impossible physics in Gravity.
Hawes
Yeah. That noted American jingoist Paul Greengrass. Who is Irish.
I watched it again with my kids. My youngest was REALLY upset when the youngest pirate died. A sentiment shared by many viewers, I imagine.
I thought its triumph as a movie was how undidactic it was.
Bobby Thomson
@BGinCHI: Also, too.
kc
Maybe I’m just getting old, but crazed lengthy rants written in Wonkette-speak on the Internet just don’t hold much appeal for me these days.
‘Cept for yours, John.
raven
@srv: Yea and you posted that drivel when I bitched about the made up bullshit in the Butler. Fuck Arkin, he hasn’t done anything worth a shit since the Russians are Coming, Russians are Coming.
BGinCHI
@Hawes: I have to agree. Only Greengrass could have taken this story and not made it into an AMERICA FUCK YEAH! story. My sympathies were with both sides as people. That was the point, I thought. Not American superiority.
Also, if you heard Hanks on Fresh Air talking about working with those Somali actors you would see this film differently.
NotMax
OT:
Hasn’t been mentioned much here, but the scandals and revelations of corruption impacting the government in Turkey have not only been wide-ranging but have led to classic moves by the executive to tighten its grip, neuter the judiciary and take a sharp turn to repression.
New recordings of P.M. Erdoğan have come out and are devastating.
Erdoğan’s response, but his popularity may be about to begin crumbling.
BGinCHI
@raven: Little Miss Sunshine, dude.
Mnemosyne
@NotMax:
Is there an 18-minute gap in the recordings at some point?
raven
@BGinCHI: Bah, he’s right down there with Alan Alda in my book.
John O
@raven:
The movie. It just never grabbed me. Confluence of events and emotions just ruined it for me.
Old Dan and Little Ann
I liked Captain Phillips. Fuck the Oscars, though. What a waste of time.
raven
I wish I had known “Two Women” was on at 4, I’m reading a book about the war in Italy and I would have liked to have seen it from the start.
raven
@John O: Gotcha. We liked it but, then, we are shallow.
MikeJ
We aren’t supposed to send the navy after pirates now? Who would you suggest protect mariners when armed people take over their ships?
Anti-piracy operations are pretty much the opposite of imperialism. I’d much rather see the navy doing more of that and less invading.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
That Rose Mary Woods did not win some award for gymnastics remains a puzzlement.
(And yes, believe she was the designated ‘fall guy’ and that the erasing was done intentionally and by others.)
srv
@raven: You should email John about his tastes:
Amir Khalid
@chmatl:
In my non-American’s judgement, there’s nothing really that reeks of American military triumphalism in Captain Phillips — which is something of a surprise, given how Hollywood likes to do its movies about the military. Maybe Drew Magary wasn’t paying attention when he saw it, if indeed he did. (He says he didn’t see 12 Years A Slave, and there he is slagging off its Oscar chances.)
I’m really not impressed by Magary’s grouchy-moviegoer shtick.
schrodinger's cat
The hater’s guide is too clever by half. He hates everything, how cool is that? Is the author one of those fashionably cynical dudes with a beard transplant?
Chickamin Slam
I need we need to make the John Cole Balloon Juice movie you mentioned one April Fool’s Day. Something about soliciting donations? Hmm?
The plot could be any/some/none of the following: Chose from below
John Cole yells at/cares about his students/readers.
John Cole yells at TV/someone who cut him off.
John Cole trips over cat/dog on the stairs/in the dark hallway.
John Cole drives across the state/to local post office to mail bills.
John Cole meets with fellow bloggers/Pope Francis.
Visiting relatives/friends amuse/aggravate, they bond over beer/whole foods.
John Cole’s car winds up in a ditch/black hole/the parking lot of the Ronald Reagan airport.
Now all you need is some special effects and of course a cameo or two by a big name actor/actress so you can say “and starring ( Name of )!”
John O
@raven:
My parents loved it, and they’re two of my favorite people. Like I said, it was clear I was in the minority on that one. I blame Hanks Syndrome, an affliction that compels some to love anything he does.
raven
@John O: Seems I have the opposite for Arkin. I should have said he hadn’t done anything worth a shit since Catch 22.
raven
@srv: Like he gives a fuck what I think. And versa visa.
schrodinger's cat
I have not seen any of the nominated movies except Gravity. I watch Oscars for the dresses.
BGinCHI
@raven: Even there, how hard is it for a smart-ass Armenian to play a smart-ass Armenian?
srv
@Chickamin Slam: You forgot the foodie reality show someone suggested.
raven
@BGinCHI: Emergency Emergency, everyone to get from streets!
IowaOldLady
@raven: Now that was a movie I liked.
cthulhu
I highly recommend seeing the Danish “A Highjacking” (“Kapringen”) and to compare and contrast with “Captain Phillips” Despite the latter honing pretty well to the true story and the former being merely “inspired by real events” the Danish film feels far more “real.”
You can stream it on Netflix.
NotMax
@raven
Personal reaction to Arkin, Sr. is that as an actor he is like vinegar is in cooking – too much sours the entire product.
gogol's wife
@BGinCHI:
You made my head spin saying that Alan Arkin was Armenian. I thought I’d been laboring under a misapprehension that he was standard-issue Ashkenazi. To wit:
“He was born Alan Wolf Arkin on March 26, 1934, in Brooklyn, New York, into a family of Jewish intellectuals from Russia and Germany.”
I haven’t seen a movie in a theater since The King’s Speech. I’d watch the Oscars to see if they properly honored Shirley Temple, but they won’t, so I won’t. Maybe the dresses before the ceremony, as Schrodinger’s Cat says.
srv
In other news, liberals show they are the real bigots:
Suffern ACE
@NotMax: Good lord. “But DAAAAAD, we’re trying to hide the money, but there’s just sooooo much of it. We’ve been at this 8 hours and still have $30 million to go. Can we take a break”?
The mexican drug lord that was captured last week had more class.
cthulhu
And for that matter, I’d go with “Europa Report” over “Gravity”
Amir Khalid
@schrodinger’s cat:
Sometimes I wonder what the point of such awards shows is, aside from the publicity (and the boost to ticket sales if a winning movie is still in cinemas). If an acting performance or the direction or some technical aspect of a movie I didn’t like wins an Oscar, am I going to like it any better? Doesn’t work that way for me.
raven
@IowaOldLady: Jonathan Winters and Paul Ford killed it and Brian Keith was awesome!
gogol's wife
And while we’re on the subject, why is it that Colin Firth won an Oscar for Best Actor and then his career immediately went into the toilet?
gogol's wife
@raven:
The scenery is nice too. I love Jonathan Winters in that film.
Mnemosyne
@NotMax:
Did you ever see Dick? They have an interesting take on what really happened to those 18 minutes.
Also, too, best casting ever: Will Ferrell as Bob Woodward and Bruce McCullough as Carl Bernstein. “You smell like cabbage!”
raven
@NotMax: I’m sure he’s a good guy.
Amir Khalid
@gogol’s wife:
Gasp. You missed Les Misérables?
gogol's wife
@Amir Khalid:
Yes, I’m sorry. I might like the music but I can’t stand the people starving to death.
elmo
The actor who played the lead pirate was so thoroughly convincing in his role, I could have been fooled into thinking it was a documentary if not for Tom Hanks. And I thought the film was reasonably sympathetic to him – at one point, Hanks/Philips is exhorting him, “There’s got to be something else, some other way to make a living,” to which he looks both contemptuous and sad.
“Maybe in America,” he says. “Maybe in America.”
I am probably borking up the dialogue horribly, because I’m doing this from memory, but I really thought that was an incredibly telling moment.
gogol's wife
What a great film last night on TCM, though: The Great Lie, with Mary Astor and Bette Davis mixing it up and George Brent standing by as the trophy husband. I love it when Bette tries to be sweet and innocent, it’s a hoot and I don’t believe it for a minute. And I adore Hattie MacDaniel — she has one devastating scene. And her brother’s in it too! They don’t make ’em like that any more.
raven
@elmo: I think you nailed it. That scene made this whole fucking conversation stupid.
Keith G
@Amir Khalid: There is no point except an industry’s night to congratulate and promote itself. That is how it got started and that is how it will remain. It began as a way of creating “Buzz” decades before that piece of jargon was invented.
gogol's wife
@raven:
Did you see Cole’s update? It’s all okay, because it was about what he thought when he heard about the movie, so the fact that it doesn’t accurately represent the movie is irrelevant.
Trollhattan
My vote’s for the movie where the guy time-travels with his AR-15 (PBUH) and ends slavery in 12 months.
srv
@raven: “It doesn’t make sense to hate people. It’s such a waste of time.”
Wait Until Dark, Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Catch-22, The In-Laws, those are all after tRaC.
schrodinger's cat
@Amir Khalid: Almost every profession has annual events where you recognize the best among your peers, but since the participants are not so telegenic they are not televised live. I don’t really think Oscars give movie-goers any extra information, we just get to know whose work the film industry respects.
aimai
@Mnemosyne: That is one of my favorite movies of all time. Dave, Dick, Zoolander for comedies.
The Dangerman
Mr. Cranky (Note: NOT John Cole) did it better. Too bad he stopped his reviews.
I hope Gravity wins; yes, an intro course in Orbital Dynamics would cause you to call bullshit several times in the movie, but it was well done overall (and I’m kinda amazed a movie with only 1 and half actors in it can be up for any award). FWIW, it’s the only movie up for the Oscar that I’ve seen.
Amir Khalid
@gogol’s wife:
I fell in love with it because of the movie. There will never be a better Fantine than Anne Hathaway. Herbert Krezmer himself said, she sang his lyrics to I Dreamed A Dream to break the stoniest heart.
srv
@John Rant at Top
The BJ Commentariat of the Left disavows your view of reality.
NotMax
@gogol’s wife
Seem to recall it might have been you who once said your preferences tilted towards costume dramas.
Happened to notice that three of the most over-the-top period melodramas ever (as only the British can get away with putting on film) have been on a bit of a sale as a collection on DVD.
schrodinger's cat
@The Dangerman: The way she hops from one space installation to another was ridiculous.
kc
I guess we were fooled by the part where you said it was “dead on . . .”
Baud
Fair enough. But when you said this:
I thought you were referring to when you first developed your thoughts about the movie — not that your thoughts were based on hearing about the movie being made and not having seen the movie. It was not an unreasonable interpretation of your original post.
John Cole
@srv: Has there ever been a blog where the front page poster had a more passive aggressive/love hate relationship with the readership?
raven
@srv: Who said anything about hate?
Amir Khalid
@srv:
When a movie purports to be telling a true story, it should in fact tell the story truthfully. And with none of that “based on a true story” weaseling.
John Cole
@kc: I can see how that would be confusing. I meant it was dead on with my first thoughts when I heard it was being made.
kc
@kc:
Now that I think about it, Cole doesn’t write in Wonkette-speak, which may be why his rants haven’t gotten old for me.
I used to be amused by that style of writing, before everyone on the Net started writing like that.
raven
@John Cole: Shit man, everybody loves you.
schrodinger's cat
@John Cole: What? You don’t love the inhabitants of Tunchland? Say, it aint so.
Baud
@raven:
Actually, I maintain a guarded indifference toward Cole.
elmo
@Amir Khalid:
I made the mistake of seeing Les Mis in the theater a couple of weeks after my father died, and I had learned of his death from a thousand miles away. The scene at the end – racing to get to him, the line “Forbid me now to die,” and I was sobbing in the theater for fifteen solid minutes after the credits had finished rolling.
BGinCHI
Cole, I thought I’d hate Capt Philips if it was one of those Ron Howard-type jingoistic movies that see us triumph over the bad brown people.
But it’s smarter than that.
The real story is that capitalism pits regular people against one another and makes them fight for scraps. Though to be sure, our scraps are way the fuck bigger than the Africans’.
kc
@John Cole:
Gotcha. Honestly, that was MY thought as well when I heard about the movie. It’s just so much fun to tease you.
Haven’t seen the movie myself, but people whose opinions I usually respect liked it.
NotMax
@John Cole
Them’s fightin’ words.
Robert
Philomena is way off. The Weinsteins put their eggs in the August: Osage County basket and were shocked when Philomena got more than an Actress nomination for Judi Dench being Judi Dench. It did get a wide release and rave reviews from critics, unlike August: Osage County. That’s the never actually released film from the Weinsteins this year.
Hungry Joe
@raven: “Emergency Emergency, everyone to get from streets!”
Damn, I was about to post those very words. My friends and I went around saying that for weeks. And more weeks. And possibly a few weeks after that.
kc
@aimai:
“Oh, I’m sorry, did my pin get in the way of your ASS?”
shelly
And then some
Saw ‘Nebraska’ last night. Bruce Dern was good, but did he get the nomination for sentimental reasons? He’s so hidden behind all that fly-away white hair and basically acts like he should be a contestant on that SNL skit ‘Who’s More Grizzled?”
I was really suprised that Will Forte wasn’t nominated for Best Supporting. He’s just remarkable in it.
Mnemosyne
@aimai:
“I have met yams with more going on upstairs than these two.”
Mnemosyne
@Amir Khalid:
The original point was to say, We’re an art form — don’t impose government censorship on us! Pretty please!
Now it’s mostly publicity. But if “Let It Go” doesn’t win Best Song, I am going to cut someone.
Neutron Flux
I retired today. This is how I feel about it.
Now Testify
Fuck you.
ruemara
@Neutron Flux: congrats! Fuck you very much!
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
Let it not be forgotten that one of the primary purposes for the founding of the Academy was to quash unionization amongst the trades. That rationale changed only later on.
The Oscars were more or less created as a mutual admiration society and occasion for patting one another on the back (plus positive publicity, don’tcha know).
gogol's wife
@NotMax:
Ooh, James Mason, yum, yum. I love Wicked Lady.
Neutron Flux
@ruemara: Thanx
Amir Khalid
@elmo:
The critics who hated Les Misérables (among them Roger Ebert and his crew) hated it a lot, mostly for its technical flaws. It had those, all right; at one point in the finale, as Marius and Cosette weep over Valjean’s passing, you can see behind them Fantine’s ghost ducking under a camera.
But technical flaws are a triviality compared to the depth of feeling a film draws from its viewers, and Les Misérables managed plenty of that. It was the most moving film of the year for me, whether it won any Oscars or not.
schrodinger's cat
@Robert: August : Osage County sounds like an extremely boring movie, not worth watching even though it has Cumberbatch in it.
schrodinger's cat
@Amir Khalid: Didn’t Hathaway win?
Mnemosyne
@schrodinger’s cat:
One of the criticisms I’ve seen of August: Osage County is that the whole point of the play is that you’re trapped in a house with this horrible dysfunctional family, but the film (of course) “opens up the play,” so you just don’t get the claustrophobic feeling that you need for the story to work.
Amir Khalid
@schrodinger’s cat:
In fact, she swept the Best Supporting Actress category in the 2013 awards season, culminating in the Oscar win exactly two months after Les Misérables was released on Christmas day.
C.S.Strowbridge
Captain Phillips is also based on lies. If you listen to the crew of the ship, Captain Phillips is an ass who took his ship too close to the shore where pirates could reach it and didn’t bother to train in standard anti-piracy measures. It was his damn fault for what happened.
Yatsuno
I am really only concerned with Best Song and Best Animated Feature. Disney should have waited on “The Wind Rises” for 2014 because the Academy goes for sentimental picks over the really good stuff. And I’m sorry but “Frozen” should win both.
Sophronia
@raven: If you can get the free TCM app, it’s on there. They keep the films on there for about a week after they air.
Xantar
It’s a reasonable inference to make given that you had absolutely nothing else to say about the movie other than a negative, uninformed reaction. And considering that you aren’t known for having any sense of nuance, it’s doubly reasonable for people to start pointing out that you’re missing a lot by your omission and the implication thereof.
So fuck you and your self-righteousness. Maybe YOU need to learn how to communicate.
Tim C.
@kc:
It’s not Wookie-talk, it’s “Hodors”
And I don’t care two hoots about the Oscars in any way shape or form either.
Mnemosyne
@raven:
If you’re reading about post-war Italy, the genre you want to look for is Italian Neorealism and the directors are names like Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio di Sica or Luchino Visconti.
Open City is a great movie if you can find it. Rossellini started shooting it before the Nazis left Rome.
Amir Khalid
@C.S.Strowbridge:
Soonergrunt also mentioned something else: the thirty grand from the Maersk Alabama’s safe, which wasn’t accounted for. It was not found on any of the pirates or aboard the lifeboat. So only an American could have taken it, either Phillips or one of the SEALS who boarded it. (Unless it fell overboard at some point, which might also be possible.)
Mnemosyne
@Yatsuno:
You can get the digital version of “Frozen” right now at the new Disney movies site — Disney Movies Anywhere. In theory, it’s supposed to keep digital copies of the movies you buy in your own “vault” so you can watch them on any device with iTunes and (again in theory) should mean you don’t have to buy new versions every time technology changes.
In theory.
Mnemosyne
@raven:
Also, a great war (short) documentary directed by John Huston: San Pietro. It wasn’t shown until after the war because it was too fucking depressing to hear how many men on both sides had died over a square mile of territory.
EthylEster
@kc wrote: Maybe I’m just getting old, but crazed lengthy rants written in Wonkette-speak on the Internet just don’t hold much appeal for me these days.
Because you have already read thousands of them…just at this site. ;=)
EthylEster
@raven: no love for yossarian?
WereBear
@Mnemosyne: gosh, that whole review was funny! True portrait of the Midwest ( I’m a Hoosier) and I appreciate the warning.
EthylEster
@BGinCHI wrote: Little Miss Sunshine, dude.
I thought grandpa was a pedophile in that movie.
raven
@Sophronia: OOO, thanks!
EthylEster
@John Cole: Rick Moran’s old website Rightwing Nuthouse?
Felonius Monk
I’m sure everyone here cannot wait for tomorrow’s opening of “Son of God” which according to the Nuzmaxx thingy is going to be the mother of all blockbusters. Maybe it will lead to a sequel “Jeebus vs. The Pirates”.
raven
@Mnemosyne: I’m actually reading THE DAY OF BATTLE
The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 but I appreciate those tips, I’ll check em out.
Robert
@schrodinger’s cat: August: Osage County on Broadway was brilliant theater. It did not translate well in the film because of the cast and the director’s reluctance to go there. It’s a shock piece, not a family drama, and losing that edge of unpredictability made it a tough watch. I’d buy Philomena before watching August: Osage County again.
marian
@raven:
You should track down Norman Lewis’ “Naples ’44”, a darkly surrealistic account of his service in British military intelligence in Naples in…well, 1944. It’s sad moving and hilarious.
sparrow
@The Dangerman: Hell you just need Phys 101. There was a point where momentum clearly wasn’t working the way it should in the aftermath of the first “debris” attack. And don’t even get me started on what nonsense a “runaway” debris explosion is anyway.
Randy P
@Gin & Tonic: Oh no. I actually started ranting out loud in the theater, much to my wife’s chagrin. Fortunately I managed to calm myself down.
But what would be so hard about hiring a science advisor?
Randy P
@Mnemosyne: Just saw a surprisingly good local (Philadelphia burbs) production of this play. Haven’t seen the movie yet, and I’m not sure why I want to. But I do. I think it has something to do with seeing really good actors interact as these horrible people. From what I’ve seen of the trailers, esp. Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper, it looks like one of those deals where you can tell the actors are enjoying the hell out of themselves. Having seen the play, it will be very interesting to me to see the “stars” take on all of these characters and compare it to the production I just saw.
I really, really can’t imagine how tall, intense Benedict Cumberbatch can play the wimpy, whiny, incompetent-at-everything (and very short in the stage production I saw) “Little Charles”.
Randy P
@BGinCHI: Not to mention Catch 22, Wait Until Dark, The In-Laws, and Last of the Red Hot Lovers
tybee
@Neutron Flux:
amf
now testify.
muricafukyea
Wr0ng way libertarian curious Cole is giving movie reviews now….of movies he hasn’t even fuking seen.
Please continue.
The first half of the movie is ok. The second half is mostly Hanks in a tiny lifeboat with Somali pirates hopped up on Khat and gets kind of boring. You also know how it ends so no climax there.
BobS
@srv: @Randy P: He was pretty funny as John Cusack’s scared psychiatrist in Grosse Pointe Blank.
Cacti
Rush Limbaugh was also angry that the Navy got the better of the pirates.
Interesting political company you keep, Cole.
Allen Wang
I Am Never A Fan Of The Oscars And I Think They Are All Bunch Of Motherfuckers
Getting Their Fucking Awards And I Don’t Give A Shit To That Asshole Celebrities!
Fuck Their Talents And Stupid Non-Unknowners!@muricafukyea: