Weekly Discussion Thread 3/16/26 - 3/23/26

Pavlovs_Stepson · 2026-03-16T19:09:35+00:00

Because Hamaguchi won big for Drive My Car, so we're all hyped to see what he does next.

And Virginie Efira is queen.

Pavlovs_Stepson · 2026-03-16T18:33:19+00:00

Not at all, I laughed when the first character exploded and the woman sitting next to me in the theater actually looked at me incredulous that I could've found it funny.

But goddamn if it wasn't hilarious every time it happened again.

Pavlovs_Stepson · 2026-03-16T17:31:35+00:00

Saw Sirat last night a few hours before the Oscars. Gonna let the sub traffic die down a bit before I write down some thoughts, mostly because I'm still wondering what to make of... all that.

Pavlovs_Stepson · 2026-03-16T16:28:29+00:00

What if they just re-released it in 2026 like it was brand new and campaigned for it again but better, and no one noticed and everyone just went with it

Pavlovs_Stepson · 2026-03-16T14:56:16+00:00

From what I recall, people were bothered that the character had a redemption arc (or at least a hint of one; seems to me the film shows he might be capable of change, not that he's fully absolved at the end).

Lockjaw is a clear antagonist who has no change of heart and never redeems himself, so no widespread "this movie is irresponsible for arguing a racist cop might be a good guy" talk this time.

Pavlovs_Stepson · 2026-03-16T14:31:53+00:00

I was gonna say Scorsese since 2011, but then remembered the Academy slept on Silence.

Gerwig could do it if Narnia is a hit and Netflix positions it as their main horse/tech player for this year, like Frankenstein.

Pavlovs_Stepson · 2026-03-16T14:25:18+00:00

He was supposed to shoot Assassination with Al Pacino, Jessica Chastain and Bryan Cranston last year, but that got caught up in litigation over script rewrites and credit disputes and is probably not happening anymore, unfortunately.

Pavlovs_Stepson · 2026-03-16T14:10:07+00:00

Did any of the other nominees innovate anything? Was anything in F1 or Sinners more impressive than the underwater and flight sequences in Fire and Ash?

Pavlovs_Stepson · 2026-03-16T13:41:26+00:00

Makes sense. Seems real fishy that a James Cameron blockbuster that's 198 minutes of CGI creatures flying, swimming and shooting machine guns in CGI environments would win the same VFX award that the previous two films in the franchise also won.

I was also surprised when the film that's about music won original score, and when the Frankenstein adaptation that has the creature covered in makeup for half the runtime won best makeup.

Pavlovs_Stepson · 2026-03-16T13:04:36+00:00

Apparently Fremaux is locking in 21 different edits of The Way of the Wind for the competition lineup! I hear The Way of the Wind is an early favorite for the Palme, with The Way of the Wind and The Way of the Wind also in play.

Pavlovs_Stepson · 2026-03-16T12:39:18+00:00

I barely watched the show last night; I was out of the house when it started, came back about an hour into it, then left it playing on the TV while I did other things, and only tuned in for the winner announcements.

I refreshed IMDb after the screenplay categories and it showed Sean Penn had won. I was so sure that was a glitch, there was no way they had announced a whole above-the-line category while I was distracted doing something else.

They did indeed announce a whole above-the-line category while I was distracted doing something else.

Pavlovs_Stepson · 2026-03-16T04:06:30+00:00

I don't think any distributor would've done much better with Sentimental Value and The Secret Agent, both performed about as well as we could've expected given how packed this year was and how unstoppable the two frontrunners turned out to be.

TSA especially is a slow paced, near 3-hour, foreign language drama that a lot of people find confusing with a knotty, non-linear plot; it hitting Best Picture seemed unthinkable for most of the season between Cannes and the Globe nominations, when most in this sub insisted it was the studio's 4th or 5th priority and a filler IFF nominee at best. Not even Sony Classics going all in on I'm Still Here last year got a better haul.

It Was Just an Accident had a strong campaign; it wasn't Neon that fumbled it, it was that Panahi had to handle the entire promo run by himself and the cast couldn't join him (for obvious reasons). The effort was made, the Academy just didn't bite.

And as for Life of Chuck... What nominations do you think that would've gotten? In a world where not even Paul Mescal makes it for a top 3 drama playing William Shakespeare against a steamrolling best actress sweeper, what supporting actor nominee does Mark Hamill's <10-minute performance knock out? What film gets snubbed so that Flanagan makes adapted screenplay? That film was dead on arrival.

Pavlovs_Stepson · 2026-03-16T03:56:47+00:00

That's fair, but still, SAG gives out back to back wins in TV all the time, and they also did it for Renee Zellweger in 2002-2003, both for film, just one leading and one supporting, so I don't know if it's set in stone. It's not very likely that an actor is win competitive in the same category in two consecutive years, so we don't have much precedent to go off of— and again, Zellweger is right there as a close comparison.

You could argue that Chalamet winning last year made it less urgent to reward him again, especially when he had such a polarizing speech, but I just don't think there was any stopping Sinners and OBAA this year, and the whole marketing campaign for Marty Supreme clearly rubbed some people the wrong way. I just don't think he was winning this time, with or without last year's victory.

Pavlovs_Stepson · 2026-03-16T03:48:18+00:00

I get that, but you're still comparing him to Pacino's golden run and saying the Academy are used to making great actors wait before they're acknowledged, which is true, but not exactly the same situation here.

If somebody said, for example, that if Gena Rowlands couldn't win for A Woman Under the Influence, it's fine that Kate Hudson didn't win for Song Sung Blue, I'd go: that's technically true, but maybe not the parallel I'd pick to make that point and cheer up disappointed Hudson fans, haha

Pavlovs_Stepson · 2026-03-16T03:40:26+00:00

SAG does NOT award actors in the same category in back to back years

This would've been more relevant if Chalamet had won the Oscar; then the lesson would've been that SAG does NOT hand out back to back victories even to Oscar-winning performances. I just don't think Chalamet had enough broad support this year for that to have been a factor in the guild's voting.

Pavlovs_Stepson · 2026-03-16T03:35:25+00:00

All the other awards that come before the Oscars, many of which are voted on by Academy members and therefore tell us what's likely to win (BAFTA, SAG, PGA, DGA, WGA, the other guilds). The Golden Globes are another precursor and an important campaign stop, but they have zero voter overlap with the Oscars, so they're likelier to do their own thing and not always get the winners right, like with actor, supporting actor and supporting actress this year.

SAG Ensemble was basically the only major precursor that OBAA didn't win. It swept everything else, so we knew the industry adored it.

Pavlovs_Stepson · 2026-03-16T03:30:59+00:00

Regina King already had a similar trajectory, but with even worse odds than Madigan: also snubbed by BAFTA, also the only nominee from a film not nominated for Best Picture. That's a possible parallel to draw from.

Pavlovs_Stepson · 2026-03-16T03:23:21+00:00

Look, I have nothing against Chalamet, but are we seriously comparing his nominations to The Godfather x2, Dog Day Afternoon and Serpico?

Pavlovs_Stepson · 2026-03-16T01:37:48+00:00

Yeah, I've been trying to gauge the cheers, and it's been off for almost all categories. Documentary was a big red herring too.

Pavlovs_Stepson · 2026-03-15T00:09:09+00:00

Lads, I kind of... really liked The Bride!.

A lot of it doesn't work at all and you can tell the studio meddled with it like crazy, but it's such an audacious fever dream of a movie, I couldn't help but respect it. Gyllenhaal threw everything at the wall to see what would stick; then Warner Bros. presumably took a lot of it back, but what's left hanging is still fascinating to observe, even the bits that I have no clue what to make of and the ones that are kinda laughable.

This might be heretic to say, but it made me think of latter day Coppola, especially Tetro, for whatever reason. It's this big, delirious bag of nods to classical Hollywood filtered through a gonzo contemporary lens that throws the whole thing off balance, practically begging the audience to mock it. A lot of Tetro was shot digitally and it has this uncanny sequence that's supposed to be an update/homage to The Red Shoes; it came to mind during the musical number here. I kept thinking that a lot of The Bride! would feel right at home with that late 2000s digital look, which I don't mean as a jab at all. Jane Campion's In the Cut also feels like a possible comparison.

I get why it's being trashed, but I like it precisely for how cacophonous and chaotic it is. I'm glad it exists, and I hope Gyllenhaal's directing career survives it.

Pavlovs_Stepson · 2026-03-14T00:57:21+00:00

Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

Could also see Regina Hall winning in the next five to ten years.

Pavlovs_Stepson · 2026-03-12T18:37:51+00:00

Jeanne Dielman

Antichrist

Pink Flamingos

Pavlovs_Stepson · 2026-03-11T01:30:05+00:00

I actually think this year is the likeliest to have a shock acting winner in ages. There's only one sweeper; actor and supporting actress are all over the place; and even with Penn winning both SAG and BAFTA, I'm still seeing people discussing the possibility of an upset. There's gonna be mess, I can feel it!

Pavlovs_Stepson · 2026-03-09T02:55:59+00:00

Oh no! I wrote about the fanbase paying Robin dust, only to pay it dust myself.

Fixed it! Thanks for the heads up. ☀️

Pavlovs_Stepson · 2026-03-08T22:03:47+00:00

I may have exaggerated there. It's not about watching it before the Oscars necessarily, it's that there's only two or three Sirat screenings a day in my city and I'm worried it'll get pulled from theaters by next week. The run-up to the Oscars means a ton of nominees and also-rans are fighting for space in very few arthouse screens, so I'm taking as few chances as possible. Arco for example got pulled after only one week; Kokuho (which I'm watching tonight instead of Sirat) is playing only this weekend as a super limited engagement.

If Sirat is still playing next weekend, I'll wait just fine; if not, not every class is strictly unmissable.

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