Aaron White is a Seattle-based film critic and co-creator/co-host of the Feelin’ Film Podcast. He is also a member of the Seattle Film Critics Society. He writes reviews with a focus on the emotional experience he has with a film. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter to be notified when new content is posted.
Listen to this podcast, step in time, it’ll be a good one, step in time. We dig into this classic Disney fable chock full of wisdom and magic as we prepare for its upcoming sequel by remembering just how wonderful the original is. A few things surprised us in our most recent viewings and it’s a good conversation around who this story is really about.
Mary Poppins Review – 0:02:59
The Connecting Point – 0:51:47
Follow & Subscribe
Join the Facebook Discussion Group
Powered by RedCircle
Music: Going Higher – Bensound.com
Additional Music this episode: “Lord Knows / Fighting Stronger” (performed by Meek Mill, Jhené Aiko and Ludwig Göransson) and “Gonna Fly Now” (by Ludwig Göransson)
Support us on Patreon & get awesome rewards:
or you can support us through Paypal as well. Select the link below and make your one-time or recurring contribution.
Rate/Review us on iTunes and on your podcast app of choice! It helps bring us exposure so that we can get more people involved in the conversation. Thank you!
Aaron White is a Seattle-based film critic and co-creator/co-host of the Feelin’ Film Podcast. He is also a member of the Seattle Film Critics Society. He writes reviews with a focus on the emotional experience he has with a film. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter to be notified when new content is posted.
LESSON #1: SOME FILMS DO NOT REQUIRE A REBOOT— Last week, the lesson was “Some films don’t require a sequel.” This time, we have to clap that lesson back and trade the word “sequel” for “reboot.” News spun across Variety this week that DreamWorks is planning to restart its Shrek and Puss in Boots franchises. First, you need a true generational gap and eight years since its last chapter, Shrek Forever After, isn’t long enough, even for the rapid aging of its core audience demographic. More importantly, I have to ask what I consider to be a necessary qualifying question when it comes to remakes and reboots. Have the originals aged to the degree where they are obsolete? Sure, Shrek was corny and dated as soon as the SmashMouth song comes on, but have the narrative fairy tale angles changed or the artistic technology that made the movie? I say they haven’t and a new one will just retread over familiar ground and not be unique or worthwhile artistically. I say let some films stay what they are as benchmarks and time capsules for their eras. The ’00s have their Shrek the way the ’10s have their Despicable Me/Minions. Let them stay there. I’m at looking at you too, The Grinch.
LESSON #2: SAY HELLO TO DISNEY+ AND GET YOUR CREDIT CARD READY— After months of little here-and-there clues and rumored plans, Disney finally and formally announced the details for its vaunted new streaming service, Disney+, coming late next year. Housing its entire artistic arsenal from Pixar to National Geographic with all of the heroic adventure in between, the lineup depth, including original films, is undeniably impressive. The thing I’ve been waiting to hear this entire time is price point. While that number isn’t defined exactly yet, the linked article references a $8-14 monthly price tag. The closer that is to $8, the more successful it’s going to be. Disney+ will be the test to see if a la carte single-studio entity services can work because the selling point of its Netflix and Hulu competitors is the ease of variety under one service roof. If Disney+ succeeds, it will be like dedicated cable networks for single teams or schools like the New York Yankees. Watch everything splinter because each studio will want to create and keep their own money.
LESSON #3: PARENTS NEED TO RESPECT AND FOLLOW FILM RATINGS— For fifty years now, the MPAA has championed the film rating system to warn, screen, and catalog film content for consumers. They are proper and they have evolved to do their job better. Whenever there is a breakdown of outrage over a film’s rating, like this recent story of content from A Star is Born triggering troubling reactions in New Zealand, it’s not the rating’s fault. R is R for a reason and it was labeled correctly so. The perceived outrage is the consumer’s fault. They either didn’t listen to the rating or didn’t commit to the due diligence to properly screen or research a film before subjecting it to younger viewers. The loopholes of the MPAA are few and far between, whereas careless parenting is rampant. This critic and school teacher implores all parents to see any questionable film for themselves before sharing it with their impressionable children. That’s the bare minimum. If you don’t do it, let some solid website like Common Sense and ScreenIt do it for you.
LESSON #4: TREAT YOURSELF TO “NOIR-VEMBER”— If you want to expand your film palette to one of the most interesting and entertaining film genres under the sun, scroll your way into some film noir. Often imitated and rarely duplicated since its hey-day, experiencing film noir is essential understanding the full scope of the cinematic art form. That and its comprised of simple damn good movies that can still put modern thrillers to shame. Start with this list of ten essential noirs from the journal spot Oh Not They Didn’t. They’re all gold bathed in stark black-and-white.
DON SHANAHAN is a Chicago-based and Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic writing on his website Every Movie Has a Lesson and also on Medium.com for the MovieTime Guru publication. As an educator by day, Don writes his movie reviews with life lessons in mind, from the serious to the farcical. He is a proud director and one of the founders of the Chicago Independent Film Critics Circle and a new member of the nationally-recognized Online Film Critics Society. As a contributor here on Feelin’ Film now for over a year, he’s going to expand those lessons to current movie news and trends while chipping in with guest spots and co-hosting duties, including the special “Connecting with Classics” podcast program. Find “Every Movie Has a Lesson” on Facebook, Twitter, and Medium to follow his work.
Aaron White is a Seattle-based film critic and co-creator/co-host of the Feelin’ Film Podcast. He is also a member of the Seattle Film Critics Society. He writes reviews with a focus on the emotional experience he has with a film. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter to be notified when new content is posted.
Aaron reacts to Disney’s mega-hit, Frozen, and comes away from this viewing with mixed opinions and some questions, too.
Follow & Subscribe
Join the Facebook Discussion Group
Music: “Something Elated” – Broke For Free
Support us on Patreon & get awesome rewards:
or you can support us through Paypal as well. Select the link below and make your one-time or recurring contribution.
Rate/Review us on iTunes and on your podcast app of choice! It helps bring us exposure so that we can get more people involved in the conversation. Thank you!
LESSON #1: SEARCHING SHOULD BE REQUIRED VIEWING FOR TEENS AND THEIR PARENTS EQUAL TO EIGHTH GRADE EARLIER THIS SUMMER— Standing as another dramatic dose of the perils of being a teenager and raising a teenager in this current times, Aneesh Chaganty’s electric Searching would make a heck of a twin-bill with Bo Burnham’s startling slice of truths from July. If you have a son or daughter with a connected device and a digital footprint of apps and engagement, you need to be floored by this film’s stance as one-part cautionary tale and one-part family feels. You’ll be diving to Protect Young Eyes and similar sites in a hurry afterwards. Hear Aaron and I gush over this film in a recent Feelin’ Film minisode. It’s my #1 film so far this year. You NEED to see this one!
LESSON #2: WAIT AND SEE A FILM BEFORE PASSING JUDGMENT— Advance reviews, hot takes, and click bait web articles that stir up angles, tangents, and nonsensical conversations before a movie makes it to the general public are the wrong place to form an opinion on a film. This lesson rears its ugly head today on the heels of the world premiere reviews for Damien Chazelle’s First Man and a Business Insider piece about whether or not the planting of the American flag during the Apollo 11 mission is shown or not. People are already circling their wagons to either defend the assumed choice as an artistic or narrative decision or start lighting up the puff-chested patriotism-fueled “how dare you” revisionist opposition pitchforks. First Man is not the first film to be bitten by this stuff and it won’t be the last. Simply put, wait and see the film for yourself before falling for rumors and rants.
LESSON #3: AWARDS SEASON STARTS RIGHT NOW— Speaking of all that early buzz, First Man is sounding pretty darn legit. I’m remain on my “No Trailers Diet” to remain unspoiled and untarnished which includes reading advance reviews, especially for First Man which has been my #1 anticipated film all year. It sounds like I’m going to like what I see in October.
LESSON #4: PUSHING BACK A RELEASE DATE TO MAKE A FILM BETTER SHOULD ALWAYS BE A WELCOME DECISION— Much like Lesson #2, other decisions shouldn’t always be met with gasps, groans, and uninformed opinions. Release dates are one of them. Too often, when a film has to blink from a planned release date to a later one, the first flags flying are the “lemon on their hands,” “it’s going to be a bomb,” and “obvious production troubles” ones from all the haters and doubters. You know what, if a studio is actually stable enough and smart enough to not rush brilliance, they might just get rewarded with brilliance. It was announced this week that the hotly-anticipated Top Gun sequel, which is still in pre-production before shooting, is going to delay a year from July 2019 to July 2020 to improve planned action sequences. Like our own founder Aaron White said on this news in the Facebook group, it’s better to get it right than anything else. I remember the boo-birds making all kinds of noise 20+ years ago when Titanic moved from a July 4th release to a holiday one. I’d say that turned out pretty well. I’ll take patience over hubris every time.
LESSON #5: LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY SHOULD BE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT WHEN RANKING AND VOTING ON THE BEST FILMS OF ANY GIVEN YEAR— I’ve ranted on the “popular film” Oscar at length once already, but the reactions from within the industry are starting to develop in really strong and rightfully righteous directions. This new category feels like a shorter hurdler being put on the race course for fluff films to clear. Because of the comic film landscape and the Disney puppet strings behind-the-scenes, Black Panther is being labeled as a beneficiary of such a new award. Don’t tell that to Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman. Relayed by friend-of-the-podcast Emmanuel Noisette of The Movie Blog through LA Times and Hollywood Reporter sources, Marvel czar Kevin Feige and Boseman support the studio’s efforts to aim for the top prize and not the popular one. Bozeman outlines a challenge for voters expressing:
What is the difficulty of the thing that you did? And do people appreciate what you did; the quality of it, the difficulty of it. What we did was very difficult. Because we created a world. We created a culture. It doesn’t exist in a world that you already know. It’s a world that we had to completely…we had to create a religion, a spirituality, a politics. We had to create an accent. We had to pull from different cultures to create clothing styles and hair styles. It’s very much like a period piece[…] So you can’t honor any period piece that you ever did, technically, more than you can this one. So as far as that’s concerned, I dare any movie to try to compare to the difficulty of this one.
I absolutely love that statement. You’ll hear Emmanuel and I talk about this within the Feelin’ Film Discussion Group on Facebook, but, more and more, we see room for the objective to be valued equal, if not higher, to the subjective when it comes to rating, ranking, and scoring films for review or awards contention. I support that notion 100%.
LESSON #6: SPEAKING OF RECOGNIZING DIFFICULTY, MAYBE IT’S TIME WE CALL GENRES “DISCIPLINES” INSTEAD OF THE ORIGINAL TERM THAT HAS BECOME ATTACHED TO STIGMAS— Despite matching the definition of being of a different story type, the adjective of “genre” and term “genre film” have acquired negative connotations over these decades of blockbuster filmmaking. It’s become a scarlet letter of supposedly fantasy and childish things that get looked down upon as lesser than some gilded ideal of theatrical drama and thespian brilliance. This is where a guy like Ethan Hawke can be seen as the opposite of Chadwick Boseman from Lesson #5. Instead of seeing what most of the masses see as the genre label pigeonholing superhero films, the First Reformed actor came out to call them “overpraised.” I’m a firm believer that there is indeed true art to be found in ANY film genre, even the comfort food and dream fulfillment of comic book films. Like Boseman alluded to, genre films like superhero films have their own unique degree of difficulty, one worthy of respect and admiration. For me, I beginning to think of different “genres” of films to be more like martial arts disciplines. Think of defensive karate versus the whirl of kung-fu or submissions of Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Each are unique for their movement, execution, and overall purpose. Each take a different degree of difficulty, skill sets, and work effort. I think it’s time to put different film genres on that kind of plane. I’m going to add “genre” to my personal list of “banned” words in film reviews, joining words like “great” and “masterpiece.” I want to value what I’m talking about higher.
DON SHANAHAN is a Chicago-based film critic writing on his website Every Movie Has a Lesson and also on Medium.com where he is one of the 50 “Top Writers” in the Movies category. As an educator by day, Don writes his movie reviews with life lessons in mind, from the serious to the farcical. He is a proud director and one of the founders of the Chicago Independent Film Critics Circle. As a contributor here on Feelin’ Film now for over a year, he’s going to expand those lessons to current movie news and trends while chipping in with guest spots and co-hosting duties, including the special “Connecting with Classics” podcast program. Find “Every Movie Has a Lesson” on Facebook, Twitter, and Medium to follow his work.
LESSON #1: NETFLIX DOES SOME GOOD THINGS— For this school teacher, it’s the end of the summer and I’ve been collecting little Netflix stories all summer for a seasonal round-up through this column. The news pieces and editorials are pretty much split down the middle between positive and negative. Let’s start with the good. For one, they put their money where their mouth (and hubris) is as they plan to spend an astounding $13 billion this year on content, which includes contracts with studios and their own created productions. That sheer volume of content on Netflix has caused many to call into question what gets premium position for promotion and placement. I like the way director Ava DuVernay put it saying “My concern isn’t being lost, my concern is being somewhere, period.” Earlier in the year, actress Elizabeth Olson expressed a similar forward-thinking compliment stating that the screening provider gives independent films a better chance at a wider audience than far more expensive limited theatrical release to a shrinking supply of art house movie theaters. Netflix can be a permanent home instead of a two-week swing-and-a-miss to small crowds. I don’t know what savvy producer would say no that for a fair price.
LESSON #2: NETFLIX DOES SOME BAD THINGS TOO— The piles of negative dings against the streaming giant is pretty tall too, spanning a range between content choices and business dealings. Competition is coming in the form of Disney’s own branded streaming service with a rumored price point of $8/month, under Netflix’s current price tag. The Mouse House has announced that all Disney content will gradually be off Netflix by March of 2019, which might cause a drop in subscribers who want their family content. Speaking of kid-friendly stuff, the loudest piece came just this week from opinion writer Tim Winter of USA Today. His bold claim was that Netflix, as proven by its supposedly racy volume of content choices, has turned its back on family programming. Along the same lines, Netflix is buying fewer documentary titles than it used to after long being a welcome hub for that genre. Echoing DuVernay’s take from Lesson #1, the home screen is only so big and what sells is going to get the premium space. That’s good business even if its not pretty. Discerning consumers need to be discerning and Netflix shouldn’t have to make excuses.
LESSON #3: MOVIEPASS NEEDS A FORK STUCK IN IT IN THE WORST WAY— Another week bring another clownish fail from MoviePass. This time its annual memberships being refunded and thrust into month-to-month subscriptions, limited ones at that, eliminating the savings that came from having a longer term. I don’t what else can go south. The crazy thing is we’ve been saying that about MoviePass for months and it keeps surprising us with more calamity and circus. Seriously, they don’t need to adopt the Lenny Kravitz song line of “it ain’t over ’til its over.” Just quit already.
LESSON #4: ON SOME LEVEL, DIRECTORS ARE IRREPLACEABLE— It was announced by Disney this week that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 will be delayed from its scheduled winter shooting date indefinitely following the dismissal of director James Gunn, which disbanded the production crew he hired. The comic sequel isn’t the first or the last (especially at Disney) film to go through a change or delay like this, but this one feels more a shade more problematic and temporary than just changing a tire or replacing a dead battery. This is replacing the battery and all of the framework, wiring, and bolts because of how each film is a team approach. If Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 ever does make it, we know it won’t be the same. It will take a hit no matter what not just because of the public sentiment, but because of the reduction in quality from an entirely new team working on the film.
DON SHANAHAN is a Chicago-based film critic writing on his website Every Movie Has a Lesson and also on Medium.com where he is one of the 50 “Top Writers” in the Movies category. As an educator by day, Don writes his movie reviews with life lessons in mind, from the serious to the farcical. He is a proud director and one of the founders of the Chicago Independent Film Critics Circle. As a contributor here on Feelin’ Film now for over a year, he’s going to expand those lessons to current movie news and trends while chipping in with guest spots and co-hosting duties, including the special “Connecting with Classics” podcast program. Find “Every Movie Has a Lesson” on Facebook, Twitter, and Medium to follow his work.
LESSON #1: MOVIEPASS IS A CARNIVAL OF BAD IDEAS— It was been wildly unpredictable and maddeningly entertaining to watch the swirling toilet that is MoviePass. First, the company began limiting subscribers film choices. Next, it was re-enrolling folks and forbidding cancellations. and then it was reporting a new $126 million dollar loss, prompting shareholders to sue. Are we out of forks to stick in this beast? That said, I enjoyed IndieWire’s David Ehrlich’s truthful parable this week defining the MoviePass clamor we feel as proof of loving the medium of film. He’s dead on.
LESSON #2: SPEAKING OF LOSSES, HULU ISN’T DOING MUCH BETTER— If you think $126 million is a ton of money, how worse does $1.5 billion sound? Put on your Dr. Evil voice and say it to yourself. The dollar amount is the annual loss staring Hulu in the face, one that follows $920 million loss last year. That’s quite a haircut that stings like a beheading. Even with that new Disney money and ownership stake arriving, are Hulu’s months numbered next?
LESSON #3: EVERYONE IS A LITTLE PRETENTIOUS OR A LITTLE MAINSTREAM. IT’S JUST TO WHAT DEGREE— I got a kick out of this score-generating quiz of sorts that made the rounds on social media. Enter a movie title on the Pretentious-O-Meter and see where it lands between pretentious and mass market. The creators list their calculation and logic behind their metrics and it’s pretty brilliant. Have fun on this little game for a few minutes (or hours)!
LESSON #4: WE’RE GOING TO MISS ROBERT REDFORD— The dashing 81-year-old redheaded founder of the Sundance Film Institute and icon of yesteryear announced recently his retirement from acting. This September’s The Old Man & the Gun, his second collaboration with director David Lowery after Pete’s Dragon, will be his last. To call it a “good” run is a gross understatement. Redford had a GREAT run, a career of reverence and one with very few blemishes. He’s always been high on my list of favorites and bests.
LESSON #5: I BELIEVE AND TRUST MICHAEL CAINE— Even in ambiguity after eight years, I never really doubted my own drawn conclusion in theorizing the end of Christopher Nolan’s 2010 opus Inception. Beloved actor Michael Caine went on record recently and cleared up the guessing game with a pretty trustworthy explanation, one of definitive fashion that might be as close to “once and for all” as we’re going to get.
LESSON #6: IS JAMES BOND FUNNY ENOUGH ANYMORE?— Former James Bond franchise actor Pierce Brosnan remembers a time when 007 was as cheeky in tone as he was in smiles. He commented recently about the brooding, solemn, and muscular current take on the classic character being portrayed by Daniel Craig. Brosnan mildly bemoans the sharp decline in light humor that was a benchmark trait of his films as well as those that came before him. Without naming names, he blames the straight-faced action hero types (think Jason Bourne and the tough guys played by Jason Statham, Liam Neeson, and Mark Wahlberg) competing with the Bond character in the action film marketplace. I think Brosnan has a valid point. As stellar and bold as Craig’s run has been, there is a noticeable measure of charm missing.
LESSON #7: DISNEY KNOWS HOW TO BEAT DEAD HORSES— Dwindling box office returns be damned! Walt Disney Pictures announced that the green light is still on for a sixth Pirates of the Caribbean film directed by Dead Men Tell No Tales helmer Joachim Rønning. The sequel would like star the Brenton Thwaites and Kaya Scodelario characters recently introduced, but there’s no word yet on Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow or Bill Nighy’s return as the teaser-dropped Davey Jones. I get these films play well overseas, but the series has run its mainstream course here domestically. I’m telling you, unless your name is James Gunn, Disney doesn’t often know when or how to quit.
DON SHANAHAN is a Chicago-based film critic writing on his website Every Movie Has a Lesson and also on Medium.com where he is one of the 50 “Top Writers” in the Movies category. As an educator by day, Don writes his movie reviews with life lessons in mind, from the serious to the farcical. He is a proud director and one of the founders of the Chicago Independent Film Critics Circle. As a contributor here on Feelin’ Film now for over a year, he’s going to expand those lessons to current movie news and trends while chipping in with guest spots and co-hosting duties, including the special “Connecting with Classics” podcast program. Find “Every Movie Has a Lesson” on Facebook, Twitter, and Medium to follow his work.
LESSON #1: WAIT FOR THE FULL DETAILS BEFORE JUDGMENT— This week’s column will be heavily centered on exploding all over the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science board of governor’s announcement of major changes to the Oscar categories, telecast, and format. I had a whole batch of Netflix-related news, but they can wait and MoviePass will keep on dying to. Let’s stay on the main event. To be nice, I might as well put my penance up front and say the positive lesson of patience and get it over with. Without knowing the as-yet-unannounced or in-progress criteria for the controversial “Best Popular Film” category, it’s probably best to take as seat at the “wait and see” picnic table instead of joining the think piece parade of pitchforks and torches. So, we can try to do that, but a better situation could have been created.
LESSON #2: DON’T ANNOUNCE A MAJOR CHANGE WITHOUT FULLY CALCULATING, ORGANIZING, OR SETTLING ON THE DETAILS OF SAID MAJOR CHANGE— Come on, AMPAS. Did the entire room of out-of-touch decision makers elbow each other in the ribs in unison with a “guys, they’re going to love this idea, just you wait” cluelessness?! Did no one there have the fart-in-the-wind thought in their mind that maybe dropping this undefined idea wrapped in undetermined ambiguity would be seen as problematic for potential public backlash? Did no one ask how condescending this looks? No wonder why your show has declined in prestige (predictable winners), viewership (slipping ratings), and respect (#OscarsSoWhite). You’re asleep at the wheel of hubris.
LESSON #3: LET’S BE CLEAR. DISNEY IS THE BAD GUY HERE— Peachy products be damned, Disney continues to do thrust shady business moves left and right with a big billionaire smile across its face because it can, from shoving out publications, undercutting partners, and squeezing everything it can for more money and dominance. This is another one of those questionable self-serving moves because they own ABC, the network the Oscars on, and it’s their declining bottom line (see the numbers), not the film industry’s or the artistic medium’s bottom lines. And, which films do think have the best and most financially-armed chances to campaign heavily for that new “popular film” Oscar? Their own, just like the last tailor-made category fell into their lap: Best Animated Feature. If that’s not gloryhounding and forcing the AMPAS to play ball, I don’t know what is.
LESSON #4: IF THE GOAL IS A SHORTER SHOW, CUT OUT THE SUPERFLUOUS FLUFF— Let me let Disney and ABC in on a not-so-little secret. It’s not the obscure films that make the Oscars boring, it’s the unnecessary variety show bits and comedic crap the producers pack into the show that take away from the importance that should marvel with majesty. For me, the Oscars should play like opening or closing ceremonies of the Olympic Games. The pageantry and the excellence of the moment is given the gravity it deserves and the results captivate us every time. Instead, we get late night talk show leftover monologues and dumb gags that inflate the running time more than any impassioned deadline-stretching speech. Let’s do some generous math. Give 24 categories 5 minutes each (3 to introduce it gracefully with deeper montages than mere quick mentions and 2 full minutes for each winner’s speeches) and that’s 120 minutes. Tack on 5 minutes to open with a welcoming monologue, 5 minutes to close with a thankful prologue, 3 minutes for the annual dead people roll call, and 30 minutes for required commercials to pay the bills. Bingo-bongo! You’re well under three hours, the awards are given rich room to operate, and nothing is forgotten except another hare-brained skit. For other outstanding suggestions, I must strongly recommend this editorial from my Chicago critic friend and colleague Jeff York on The Establishing Shot. His list of smarter changes is outstanding.
LESSON #5: THERE ARE SO MANY OTHER WORTHY AREAS FOR NEW OSCAR CATEGORIES THAN THIS SILLY IDEA OF A POPULAR FILM ONE— Of all the new and unsung categories, it had to be blockbuster level cheese? You can do better, Academy, to celebrate the real people that make any of these movies, large or small, special. Jeff York’s column got the ball rolling with suggesting a Best Stunt Work award and excising the antiquated and watered-down Best Song category. That’s a great place to start. IndieWire’s Zack Sharf listed seven possible category additions in a column on Thursday, all of them with more solid merit than the popular film one. Praise is overdue, but not for the moneymakers. Give it to the hard workers behind the scenes.
LESSON #6: IF YOU WANT MORE POPULAR FILMS TO WIN AWARDS, MAKE BETTER POPULAR FILMS. IT’S THAT SIMPLE— Again, without criteria, this new category reeks to be like the equivalent of a participation ribbon in some crappy youth sports league. There have been more than enough times in the 90 years of Oscar history where the popular films are also thought of as among the best of the given year as well. That distinction of quality and the integrity to maintain that are the whole point of the awards. They have to be earned. Want one? Make a better movie. Sure, any of these awards are given in the moment and years before we’ll ever know if the films fully deserved them or had the staying power to stand as the best they were deemed to be. But that doesn’t mean you have to lower that level of quality just to endear some demographic you want to watch your silly, broken comedy variety awards show. That’s what the MTV Movie Awards are for.
LESSON #7: FINALLY, “FAVORITES” WILL ALWAYS BE MORE LOVED THAN THE SO-CALLED “BEST” ANYWAY— I say it all the time on the FF airwaves and social media walls. There is sometimes a difference between “favorite” and “best.” When they are the same, that’s wonderful and special. It earned that universal acclaim and deserves all the praise, be that awards or otherwise. However, if a “favorite” doesn’t win, that’s perfectly OK because the loyal love they generate cannot be taken away and will outlast any golden hardware it didn’t win. The box office profits and, more importantly, the endearment and continuous place among the celebrated classics of the masses will always be a stronger justification than any trophy. Just ask every parent which films they pass on to their kids. I bet it’s more non-Oscar winning personal favorites than academic winners. Just ask all of those filmmakers and actors who become permanent legends from non-Oscar-winning films and cult classics. They didn’t need an award to be loved. Their adored films and performances spoke for themselves. All of that is better than enough.
DON SHANAHAN is a Chicago-based film critic writing on his website Every Movie Has a Lesson and also on Medium.com where he is one of the 50 “Top Writers” in the Movies category. As an educator by day, Don writes his movie reviews with life lessons in mind, from the serious to the farcical. He is a proud director and one of the founders of the Chicago Independent Film Critics Circle. As a contributor here on Feelin’ Film now for over a year, he’s going to expand those lessons to current movie news and trends while chipping in with guest spots and co-hosting duties, including the special “Connecting with Classics” podcast program. Find “Every Movie Has a Lesson” on Facebook, Twitter, and Medium to follow his work.
