OBAA wouldn't have been my choice for best picture, either, but it had some beautiful pieces of film-making. The long shot while running through the Sensei's safe house was great, and the car chase at the end was a) gorgeous, and b) visually not quite like anything I'd ever seen before. I can see what Academy voters liked about it, in addition to the "this director has been nominated so many times without winning, so maybe he finally deserves one" angle, which I think maybe had as much to do with it as anything.
replyIt's very pretty, but the book is much better
replyI had no idea about this! Thank you, I quite enjoy Pynchon’s novels.
replyBravo, palmas! etc.
replyQuality is not really near the top of Oscar eligibility criteria now, is it?
replyWell I think there are some people that disagree.
replyAcademy members aren't always good at picking "good" movies. I'd argue they're actually pretty bad at it. Every once in a while they guess correctly. At least my 2 cents.
replyLemme guess… you didn’t like how “political” it was.
replyOBAA was technically well executed but, to me, pretty fucking soulless.
replyI haven't seen all the nominees, but the ones I did see -- Train Dreams and Sinners -- were, to our eyes, profoundly better films than OBAA. I'm in particular interested in seeing Hamnet soon; everything I read about it puts it in the same category as TD and S.
OBAA was the safe Academy pick, and so that's what they picked.
The visuals weren't terrible, I thought, but the writing, dialog, acting (except for Moura), and narrative arc were terrible.
replyIt's one of those movies where almost everyone looks like they just really love being on stage ("isn't cinema lovely?") and where the writers have an idea of what cliches they're trying to work with but can't land them into an actual story, even a story made out of cliches.
What on earth is a AAA film?
replyThere's no such thing (parent likely borrowed this term from the video game industry)
replyThe whole single A, triple A thing comes from league baseball. Single A was the lower leagues and AAA is the top of the heap pro ball. AAA denotes big budget tent pole productions. So big a studio could go bankrupt if it doesn't do well.
replyAh so the OP thinks OBAA was designed as a big budget popcorn flick? No wonder they didn't like it.
replyPaul Thomas Anderson will tell anyone who will listen that he doesn't make commercially sound films. It's kind of his thing...
replyThey did throw some serious money at this film, though, so I can see where people would have strange expectations.
when they said AAA i assumed it was satire
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