What We Learned This Week: February 27-March 1

Posted on by everymoviehasalesson.

LESSON #1: ROTTEN TOMATOES IS DOING THE RIGHT THING— Better late than never and following the lead of IMDb, the popular review aggregator website is banning user reviews being posted to films prior to their release.  This week, internet trolls were piling on Captain Marvel before the film was even released.  Since there’s no good way of vetting strangers off the streets versus the critics that build the Tomatometer (myself included), this was a necessary stoppage and a measure I wholly appreciate.  Let the pros lead the way first and users join in after. There’s no need for haters trying to make an internet name for themselves hijacking a film’s standing with unsubstantiated garbage and fake reviews like that.  

LESSON #2: ROGER EBERT WAS HUMAN— Speaking of film critics and piggybacking on the Oscars crowning a new year of “best” films and performance, I stumbled across a 2016 article on Taste of Cinema that dug through the archives of Roger Ebert to find ten great films, some with Oscar successes, that he “hated” with less-than-stellar reviews.  From Gladiator to Reservoir Dogs and more, it’s quite a little list.   

LESSON #3: STEVEN SPIELBERG, HARVEY WEINSTEIN, GEORGE LUCAS, PETER JACKSON, AND JAMES CAMERON ARE THOUGHT OF MORE HIGHLY THAN GOD— With awards season just completing with the Oscars this week, I found an interesting little article last fall on MovieWeb that collected acceptance speech data from the Academy Awards up to 2015.  As it turns out, the five most thanked people at the Academy Awards before God were the five men mentioned in the lesson title.  Other fun data from the study included that the Academy was thanked 43% of the time and parents thanked only 28% of the time. How about that?

LESSON #4: PHYSICAL MEDIA CONTINUES TO TAKE HITS— With the push of streaming services and digital access, we’re slowly seeing physical media inching closer to becoming an endangered species.  I think we’ll alway have a niche like the Criterion collection for high-end keepers and this new little wave of 4K, but expect those store shelves and home displays to shrink as the years continue.  One big body blow to the standing of physical media came this week with Samsung announcing they are not longer going to manufacture Blu-ray players.  This feels heftier and more uncertain than the transitions we’ve lived through in the past (VCR to DVD, DVD to Blu-ray) because there’s not a new physical “thing” replacing the previous media.  We have files and hard drives now. Welcome even more to the future.  

LESSON #5: TREAT YOURSELF TO A GOOD JOURNALISM MOVIE— If you’ve been following WWLTW lately, I like ending on a thematic list of recommendations.  Call it homework assignments or something to build for Letterboxd. This week, take a gander at this list of the 10 best journalism movies as listed by the Washington Post.  There’s not a bad film on it.  Use the JustWatch app or search engine to find where they are available for streaming or rental

 

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.

What We Learned This Week: February 17-26 Post-Oscars Special

Posted on by everymoviehasalesson.

LESSON #1: WE HAVE AN OUTRAGE CULTURE PROBLEM— Between the old John Wayne story at the beginning of the week and Green Book’s Best Picture Oscar win last night, we continue to learn (more like re-learn) that we have a consistent section of the social media population that seek things to be upset about, no matter if those chosen topics or pillars are part of their actual lives or not.  John Wayne and his politics are dead. He’s but one of many Hollywood figures over the course of history to be on the wrong era and side of equity and equality. Boycott every artist with questionable opinions, then or now, and you wouldn’t have much to watch. At the same time, no one is forcing you to see Green Book and call it the best of the year.  Love what you love.  Let differences of opinion say as small as they matter.  The world keeps on spinning after both so-called disasters.  All the more reason to avoid Twitter. Fixing the future is better than squawking about the past.

LESSON #2: WE LIVE IN A WORLD WHERE BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY IS A FOUR-TIME OSCAR WINNER— Rami Malek was wonderful, but the rest of those wins (editing and two sound awards) are really suspect.  Looking into the history books, check out what Bohemian Rhapsody’s four trophies puts it equal with and ahead for multiple wins.

EQUAL:  Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men, Network, Ordinary People, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Platoon, Rain Man, Unforgiven, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Departed, No Country for Old Men, Inception, Birdman, Life of Pi, The Shape of Water, and more

AHEAD OF:  Miracle on 34th Street, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Brokeback Mountain, All Quiet on the Western Front, a few more, and all the films with one or zero Oscars.

That’s astounding company of comparison, if I may say so.  Enjoy using the “we live in a world where ___” line for any number of new Oscar winners in any given year.  Every Oscar winner has a worst moment or career low point that can be cited and compared to a non-winner. For example, the directors of the Urban Legends: The Final Cut (John Ottman) and Stuck on You (Peter Farrelly) now have more Oscars than Alfred Hitchcock or David Fincher.  It’s fun for a second, but don’t belabor the joke too long.

LESSON #3: NO MATTER WHAT, GOOD HISTORY WAS MADE AT THE 91ST ACADEMY AWARDS TOO— Behind the questionable wins for Bohemian Rhapsody and Green Book, it was a good night for burgeoning diversity, led by Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, and female artists left and right.  Stay tuned to the Feelin’ Film podcast this week for their recap show.  Aaron White has an outstanding list of first and achievements to share with you on the awards recap episode of Feelin’ Film.

EPISODE 151: 2019 Oscars/Feeler’s Choice Awards Recap

LESSON #4: NOT TOO MANY PEOPLE MISS HAVING AN OSCAR HOST— It had been 30 years since the last hostless Oscars. 1989 was a legendary trainwreck because of it. The 2019 edition moved quite swimmingly until that last hour when the bigger awards require more individual time.  The whole show clocked in at three hours and twenty-two minutes, which is nearly a half-hour less than last year. It felt shorter, tighter, and quicker. I’d be very OK if it stayed that way. Let the jokes come from smart presenter choices and let that be the lightness.  Also, someone needs to pay that announcer Randy Thomas (her tenth show) a fat bonus for keeping it quick and properly teasing for the viewers for the telecast all night. Hey, did you hear Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga were going to perform “Shallow?” Yeah, me too, like a dozen times.  Hook and hold on to those viewers, ABC.  Jokes aside, the streamlined show and all its teasers worked.  Rating show this year’s show was up 12% from last year’s all-time low… to the second lowest show ever.  Well, up is up and there is a long way to go. In my opinion, the movies are the draw and never the host or the side acts.    

LESSON #5: THE MOMENT OF THE NIGHT— Speaking of that, let’s enjoy the absolute peak performance of any kind from last night.  The lighting, the reversed shooting direction, the steps up from the audience, the wardrobe, the emotion, the constant eye contact, all of it, was mesmerizing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FnveHiDEYk

 

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.

Episode 138: Green Book

Posted on by Aaron White.

This week we chat about one of the most expertly acted films of the year, the moving story of an unlikely friendship between Dr. Don Shirley, an accomplished classical piano player, and Tony Lip, an Italian bouncer who is enlisted to drive Shirley on a concert tour through the racially divided deep south. Though it may be easy to predict, the film is based on real-life events and the relationship between Shirley and Lip. Green Book has seen rave critical and audience response, but is not without its critics. We try to navigate the complicated material it covers in this latest conversation about a film that definitely makes us feel.

 

Green Book Review – 0:04:06

The Connecting Point – 1:05:44

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Additional Music this episode: “Lord Knows / Fighting Stronger” (performed by Meek Mill, Jhené Aiko and Ludwig Göransson) and “Gonna Fly Now” (by  Ludwig Göransson)

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MOVIE REVIEW: Green Book

Posted on by Aaron White.

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.