Poll

Which WILL win, not SHOULD.

Amour
0 (0%)
Argo
3 (33.3%)
Beasts of the Southern Wild
0 (0%)
Django Unchained
2 (22.2%)
Les Miserables
2 (22.2%)
Life of Pi
1 (11.1%)
Lincoln
1 (11.1%)
Silver Linings Playbook
0 (0%)
Zero Dark Thirty
0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 9

Voting closed: February 26, 2013, 12:35:05 AM

Best Picture Winner

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xwarrior

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Re: Best Picture Winner
« Reply #30 on: March 17, 2013, 10:18:10 AM »
Hollywood should award an Oscar for 'The Film that Distorts History the Most.' I think that there comes a point when a claim for 'creative licence' can no longer justify distortions of reality.

Anyway, a lot of New Zealanders are not happy with the crap shovelled out in Argo. 


NZ survivor of hostage crisis breaks silence over Kiwi heroism in Tehran

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10871725
I have my standards. They may be low, but I have them.
- Bette Midler

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Stil

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Re: Best Picture Winner
« Reply #31 on: March 17, 2013, 03:51:45 PM »
What about movies like Titanic or Goodfellows? Do the stories in these movies bother people because they are inaccurate?

Re: Best Picture Winner
« Reply #32 on: March 17, 2013, 06:34:39 PM »
Actually, lots of people were upset about the historical accurasies in those movies. Not me, because I can read, which means I can understand the phrase "based on real events" that precedes all historical movies. No movie, nor book, can ever present any events as they truly happened, because retelling or reporting any past event will be effected or coloured by the narrator's own interpretation. I have two books in front of me right now, a bigography of Andrew Carnegie and Andrew Carnegie's Autobiography and even though these two books aim to tell me the same story, the general impression of the subject, Andrew Carnegie, are rather different in view point and assessment. Movies are entertainment. If one wants to understand history, history books are usually the preferred medium and even those will contradict each other. Two books on my shelf each deal with Frcanco and Vancetti, one portrays them as scape-goats and one as dyed-in-the-wool super-anarchists. They both make convincing points. To figure out the truth, I would have to summon the ghosts of the two chaps and who knows if they would be truthful? Hollywood produces illusions, make-believe, fiction. That is all.
"Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination." Oscar Wilde.

"It's all oojah cum spiffy". Bertie Wooster.
"The stars are God's daisy chain" Madeleine Bassett.

Re: Best Picture Winner
« Reply #33 on: March 17, 2013, 06:51:02 PM »
^ based on real events
when ur a roamin', do as the settled do o_0

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A-Train

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Re: Best Picture Winner
« Reply #34 on: March 17, 2013, 08:12:30 PM »
What about movies like Titanic or Goodfellows? Do the stories in these movies bother people because they are inaccurate?

Anybody who believes these, or any other movie, are more than 50% accurate probably has not yet gotten over the letdown over Santa Clause.
"The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore attempt the impossible and achieve it, generation after generation.

Pearl S. Buck

Re: Best Picture Winner
« Reply #35 on: March 17, 2013, 10:05:59 PM »
Movies have to be true to *something*. Otherwise they're just sound and colour on a screen. If they spend too much time misrepresenting just *what* they are true to, the audience is entitled to be annoyed.
when ur a roamin', do as the settled do o_0

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kitano

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Re: Best Picture Winner
« Reply #36 on: March 17, 2013, 10:37:53 PM »
For me the problem isn't with the people who watch the movies and have a poor understanding of history because like people have said, they can easily check up on it if they are interested. For me the problem is that it f*cks over the subjects of the movie who were involved in the real events and to see what happened changed or omitted just for the sake of entertainment


Re: Best Picture Winner
« Reply #37 on: March 17, 2013, 10:40:54 PM »
Movies have to be true to *something*. Otherwise they're just sound and colour on a screen. If they spend too much time misrepresenting just *what* they are true to, the audience is entitled to be annoyed.

May I then inquire as to what "The Expendables", "Die Hard", "Star Wars" and "Madagascar" are true to, aside from the idea that we, the audience, likes to see things getting blown up and animated talking animals whilst munching popcorn?
"Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination." Oscar Wilde.

"It's all oojah cum spiffy". Bertie Wooster.
"The stars are God's daisy chain" Madeleine Bassett.

Re: Best Picture Winner
« Reply #38 on: March 17, 2013, 11:03:46 PM »
That's a weird question from a fiction aficionado, Eric. At minimum they are true to their premise. If their premise includes untrue things, such as talking animals blowing up popcorn, this is entirely fine. If their premise includes--or is made to include by, say, advertising--a fudging of frames of reference, then the audience is being screwed with. If the actual frame of reference is "entertaining melodrama with moustaches" but the film makers are also attempt to appropriate gravitas and thus more "drama" by pretending to another frame, "actual history", then something is amiss. It's a cheat.
when ur a roamin', do as the settled do o_0

Re: Best Picture Winner
« Reply #39 on: March 17, 2013, 11:11:31 PM »
Well, they don't pretend to give us actual history. When I sit down to read E.L.Doctorow's "Ragtime" which is a historical novel in which the reader is a secret observer of conversations between J.D.Rockefeller and J.P.Morgan, I do not believe I am actually reading the real thing. The premise of "Lincoln" was to show the audience one take on the life and personality of Lincoln. 'Argo" had the premist of showing us one take on how that situation was dealt with. Anyone who reads, watches or is exposed to one opinion and takes that as either the truth or gospel, is kidding themselves. To me, there is no difference between watching "Winnie the Pooh" or "Lincoln". Both are entertaining, that's it. I don't think either of them attempt to present me with the truth, all they present me with is an interesting narrative.
"Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination." Oscar Wilde.

"It's all oojah cum spiffy". Bertie Wooster.
"The stars are God's daisy chain" Madeleine Bassett.

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A-Train

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Re: Best Picture Winner
« Reply #40 on: March 17, 2013, 11:23:23 PM »
Movies have to be true to *something*. Otherwise they're just sound and colour on a screen. If they spend too much time misrepresenting just *what* they are true to, the audience is entitled to be annoyed.

We're always entitled to be annoyed. I exercise that entitlement routinely. For me, if it's true to human experience and true to itself,that's enough for a start. But I also like to see sh!t get blown up.
"The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore attempt the impossible and achieve it, generation after generation.

Pearl S. Buck

Re: Best Picture Winner
« Reply #41 on: March 17, 2013, 11:28:51 PM »
Well, they don't pretend to give us actual history.

They did too. The hair, the clothes, the cigarettes, the music, the names of the people, the fact that it's "based on" a genuine incident.

"Based on" is fine when it's used by the creators to tell some story of their own. Every story is "based on" in this sense.

But...

Quote
The premise of "Lincoln" was to show the audience one take on the life and personality of Lincoln. 'Argo" had the premist of showing us one take on how that situation was dealt with.

If it's a take on history, then the frame of reference is history. If instead of a take on real events, they were developing something more universal, for example, say, the enduring appeal of sideburns, then there's room for the audience to let broader historical inaccuracy slide, provided the sideburns were accurate enough to the platonic ideal. But planting the story firmly in "history" means inaccuracies are untruths.
when ur a roamin', do as the settled do o_0

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kitano

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Re: Best Picture Winner
« Reply #42 on: March 17, 2013, 11:32:16 PM »
Well, they don't pretend to give us actual history. When I sit down to read E.L.Doctorow's "Ragtime" which is a historical novel in which the reader is a secret observer of conversations between J.D.Rockefeller and J.P.Morgan, I do not believe I am actually reading the real thing. The premise of "Lincoln" was to show the audience one take on the life and personality of Lincoln. 'Argo" had the premist of showing us one take on how that situation was dealt with. Anyone who reads, watches or is exposed to one opinion and takes that as either the truth or gospel, is kidding themselves. To me, there is no difference between watching "Winnie the Pooh" or "Lincoln". Both are entertaining, that's it. I don't think either of them attempt to present me with the truth, all they present me with is an interesting narrative.

Historical films get a lot of their cache from their connection with reality as well. A lot of people went to see Lincoln because of the importance of the person from history. If it had just been the last few months of some fictional historical US president who invaded Russia or something it would be a totally different thing.
 

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xwarrior

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Re: Best Picture Winner
« Reply #43 on: March 17, 2013, 11:33:08 PM »
Not sure why an attempt to set the record straight about an incident in the movie Argo has resulted in contributions from American Film 101.

For the record - I know it is a movie, I know movies are not real, and I know that Santa Clausecomes only once a year.

For those who think Rambo and the US Army won WW2 here is another article on the issue:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/film/8424975/NZ-diplomats-heroic-Argo-escapee



I have my standards. They may be low, but I have them.
- Bette Midler

Re: Best Picture Winner
« Reply #44 on: March 18, 2013, 01:46:02 AM »
In that case, the only movies Hollywood should make are really long-winded, stuffy, tweed-dripping documentaries, action-packed nonsense like "The Expendables", barftastic rom-coms and superhero-movies. All I can say is that I, me, the person, firmly accepts that any movie set in any historical period will, through costumes and speech, try to make it feel as real as possible whilst telling me a story. A movie is like a magic trick, an illusion, I don't want to see the magician stuff the pigeon up his sleeve, I want to go 'wah' when it flies out. Illusion and wonder, that is all. Movies, like books, have the leeway of poetic license. One of the reasons I don't watch reality shows is because reality is boring, fiction is entertaining.
"Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination." Oscar Wilde.

"It's all oojah cum spiffy". Bertie Wooster.
"The stars are God's daisy chain" Madeleine Bassett.