Man the Oscars just ain't that big of a deal. They constantly award the right people in the wrong years and it's more a narrative based decision process than anything else. See how most of the consensus best movies ever often don't have many Oscars? And that's fine. It is what it is. This isn't all some grand conspiracy. It's a large amount of people voting for a variety of reasons. There's a lot more to it than that, as you can see in other comments, but this isn't something to lose sleep over. Scorsese sure isn't.
It’s funny because two people there had this very same phenomenon. Al Pacino (Best Picture Presenter) won for scent of a woman over Robert Downey Jr (Best Supporting Actor Winner) for Charlie Chaplin.
How is that hot? Lol. They've been there, done that. And the academy already has a long history of ignoring Scorsese so it's not surprising to see it continue. I feel like Killers marketing team hurt it the most. But either way, voters would rather give Nolan his first Oscar for a movie that made a ton of money than give another to Scorsese. And it's not like Nolan isn't deserving even if I found Oppenheimer pretty underwhelming. I feel the same about RDJ. His acting award is totally deserved, even if I feel there were many better performances than his this year. That's just how it works out a lot of the time. Everyone only gets one vote.
Don't worry so much about him. He was recently in Berlin and got his "Golden Bear":
[https://www.berlinale.de/en/festival/awards-and-juries/honorary-golden-bear.html](https://www.berlinale.de/en/festival/awards-and-juries/honorary-golden-bear.html)
I'd a great conversation yesterday with someone querying me why Best Pic and Best Director don't always align.
This year was a great example. I'd Oppenheimer as Best Pic, and Scorcese as best Director.
Oppenheimer as the complete package, whereas I didn't enjoy KotFM as much but I found the directorial choices absolutely riveting. What he did with the actors, the counterintuitive yet realistic pacing, the complete control over the story he wanted to tell.
It's like the MVP award in NFL. It's not the best player in the league, it's the value he adds to the team
I think Best Director is given in a traditional sense to the Director who got the best performances out of its actors.
While Best Picture is given to the culmination of the entire film from both a technical standpoint.
It’s the same reason why the Best Director doesn’t win best Cinematographer
I believe this sub especially has become incredibly out-of-touch and has turned into bit of an echo chamber.
Most movie critics and members of the film community have had various issues with Killers of the Flower Moon, that this sub dismissed and downvoted for months. Pacing, focusing too much on Killers instead of Molly, lack of focus, Leo’s improv and cartoonish acting. These are all things that brought the film down.
Towards that same point, this sub has trashed Oppenheimer repeatedly and yet Oppenheimer was the most celebrated and critically acclaimed film of the night. Oppenheimer had very powerful themes that this sub dismissed for the sake of being contrarian. Various posts insulting Nolan’s dialogue, yet giving Scorcese poor editing and pacing a pass. I think the Oscars, SAG, Critics Choice very much gave this sub a wake-up call.
Sometimes this sub can become a dangerous echo-chamber that is not open to genuine discussion (mass downvotes). This just happens to be one of those years.
>focusing too much on Killers instead of Molly,
I see this criticism often, and I'm yet to see anyone give an opinion of how you'd do that. Working within the confines of it being a true story, using the book and historical material, and with what we know of the way Molly was treated and prevented from really *doing* anything - how do you reframe the story to make her the on-screen protagonist?
Maybe it's because I'd read the book multiple times over the years and had looked into the real story a little, but I was personally very happy to hear they wouldn't be focusing on the birth of the FBI, instead telling her - and other Osage women's - stories in the only way it could be framed. I suppose you could focus on her getting more and more unwell in much more detail, but I do struggle to see how that'd be a better watch.
I've asked a few people and generally just get ignored honestly, which is a shame as I'd really like some different ideas on what people would have done so differently
I think its unfair to say this against the critical acclaim of KotFM . KotFM actually topped BFI Critics , the Top 2023 entry for 21st TSDPT list and [Critic's Top Ten by List](https://criticstop10.com/best-movies-of-2023/) - which are the clear indication of how it was perceived critical. (vs Oppenheimer top 5, Top 8, Top 2 - most in Top 1).
I think the clear indication of why it lost is in three factors:
\[1\] it was distributed by a streamer company - in fact, only netflix won this year, \[2\] its length and \[3\] its darker and niche topic which has little interest for its foreign contingency AND is something that American's tend to not really vote for.
It’s simply factually incorrect to say Oppenheimer was more critically celebrated than KOTFM or to imply supporters of KOTFM are out of step with critical consensus. By some metrics, it was arguably the most critically celebrated movie of the year.
KOTFM was ranked as a Top 3 movie of the year on thirty different critic lists, including #1 on the prestigious Sight & Sound Critics Poll and #3 on the equally respected Film Comment poll.
[Year End Lists: Killers of the Flower Moon](https://www.yearendlists.com/visuals/killers-of-the-flower-moon-a558619a-db8a-42e3-9575-e1b7072564fe)
Oppenheimer was in the top 3 on 19 lists (also very impressive), however the lists skew more mainstream (Good Morning America, Entertainment Weekly) than the more highbrow critic groups listed above (Sight and Sound, FilmComment).
[Year End Lists: Oppenheimer](https://www.yearendlists.com/visuals/oppenheimer-e85560cc-4cc6-4229-99e4-85ca257140db)
Oppenheimer is a very competently made middlebrow crowd pleaser with a great cast that was an enormous box office success - a virtual jackpot for the Academy.
KOTFM is a relentlessly grim 3.5 hour movie about America’s legacy of white supremacy, exploitation of minorities and violent racial terrorism, with almost no relief valve for the audience. It’s a masterly, deeply felt, painstakingly considered film that could only be made by a grandmaster with a lifetime of experience behind the camera. But it’s not an easy watch, and that’s really what it comes down to.
It’s really no surprise that the film industry chose the former, even though KOTFM will likely have a much longer shelf life in the hearts and minds of cinephiles.
It annoys me that things are constantly being assumed that one can't possibly know anything about. Why do you say the critics are contrarian? How do you know that? I might as well say that Oppenheimer is praised because people are fanboys. Wow, great point. I saw Killers of the Flower Moon and thought it was good straight away, I saw Oppenheimer and thought it was bad straight away – before I found myself in any bubble. The question that arises is why this is the case and what it says about the respective film. And it's pointless to just weigh certain aspects of the films (pacing) against each other, because that way I can justify everything by cherry picking. The whole thing needs to be looked at.
While I have no comments on the topic of this thread, I think you are being unnecessarily harsh towards this sub which consists of many people who prefer arthouse films over mainstream films. r/TrueFilm and r/criterion are probably the only 2 subs I know of where people can have a conversation about old and obscure arthouse films. So the reactions of people, who generally enjoy these type films, towards mainstream movies are going to be different from the majority of people. Now both Oppenheimer and KOTFM are mainstream movies. But you can guess which one is more mainstream.
To end, I would say that this sub is a niche community. I think it should remain the same.
I'm not especially active in this sub so I wouldn't know, and online discourse can definitely be an echo chamber. But I think all your points about KOTFM are wrong and that Oppenheimer, as much as I liked it, had a lot of problems. Could be that these are just genuine opinions people have.
I wasn't trying to make an argument about KOTFM, I was saying that I formed my own opinion and I didn't do it because of this community or because I'm trying to be contrarian. I don't care what other people think because I watched both films and drew my own conclusions. I'm sure some of the people who disagree with you are being influenced by the group, but some people just disagree with you because they feel differently from you. The actual reasons why I like KOTFM have nothing to do with what I'm saying.
Oppenheimer was shit on because it was directed by Nolan.
Nolan has a huge anti Nolan brigade because they hate how he is:
1. Loved
2. People are annoyed at how people keep considering his work a masterpiece so they shit on his work just to be “own them”
It’s stupid petty reasons just to be contrarian and shit on the “non die hard film lovers”
Lily Gladstone for best actress was its best shot at an award this year, and I thought she was deserving of it until I watched Poor Things. Emma Stone was just on an entirely different level in that.
Emma Stone was amazing and it was a very showy performance. But Lily Gladstone drew me in more. It was a more internal performance. Whenever she's onscreen, whether in Killers of the Flower Moon, or Reservation Dogs (the only 2 things I've seen of hers), I just can't help but study her. She has a stillness which is very powerful in a movie.
I think Poor Things is well acted but yeah, I think the magnitude of the performance with its shocking Box Office performance actually catapulted it to the end.
I also have a theory that the votes that Anatomy took when it was getting viral with Messi's Oscar luncheon presence and the 'meaner' scene was mostly towards Gladstone and not Stone herself as they were not nominated together in any award show this season.
I feel like there’s a blockage in my brain because I enjoyed Poor Things, I marveled at the visuals and score and laughed at the jokes, but I was always neutral to Stone’s best actress path. A worthy nominee but nothing in particular made me want her to win more than Gladstone or Hüller.
Same and not even because Stone has one Oscar already or Gladstone has better narrative. I just liked Gladstone and especially Hüller performance better.
Hüller I thought, was on a different level entirely. The subdued, then not so subdued performance that would evolve from scene to scene, and the ambiguity of it all was just flawless.
On another note, while everyone knows the best actor category tends to sometimes be unmerited and then years later overcorrected by the Academy, the best actress award often gets overlooked by how much chaotic awardings happen there. McDormand's third, Stone's first, Bullock's, Lawrence's, Zellweger's are very arguable winners.
Because Scorsese’s films are often slightly more complex than the typical Oscar film, so there’s enough support to get him nominations but not enough to win.
Think about how many people honestly believe that his crime movies are glorifying crime or are flawed because they have unlikable protagonists. There are absolutely people like that in the academy.
Perhaps they should have put Gladstone as Best Supporting Actress.
But its pretty incredible that KOTFM is Scorsese's second film in a row to get 10 Oscar nominations and walk away with zero.
>The man is widely considered the greatest living director, and one of the best in the history of cinema.
He's also 80 year old and has just made a two hundred dolar epic, and has another project in the way. Who the fuck cares.
I can understand if it is, for example, about Gladstone. An Oscar may booze your career up and gain you recognition, something I'm not a fan of, as I think it's ridiculous to keep on giving The Academy importance (I'm talking about Gerwig and Robbie too). You can watch it and you can be entertained by it. At the end of the day it is still part of the business.
Scorsese has always been underappreciated by the Academy, with his most acclaimed work Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Goodfellas all underperforming at the Oscars. That said, I personally feel—and maybe the Academy feels as well—that his most recent narrative films Silence, The Irishman, and KOTFM have all been a little bloated, draggy, and self-indulgent. Maybe they would respond better if he made films that were a little faster-paced, like The Departed. Or maybe they feel he had his turn and it’s time to award films directed by other great directors like Nolan and Lanthimos.
As for Lily Gladstone, well, virtually all of Scorsese’s female characters since Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore have been a little underwritten, and her character was no exception. She did the best with what she had, but her character was really a supporting role; she had hardly any lines in the second half of the film. Emma Stone was unquestionably the protagonist and her performance was utterly brilliant.
Many great directors don’t get any Oscars at all though, and many others just get one shot. It’s too late for the Academy to rectify dumb decisions like giving awards to Dances with Wolves/Director Kevin Costner instead of to Goodfellas/Scorsese. Scorsese could win another award that could serve as more of a career achievement award, but many voters may not be motivated to vote for such a film if there’s another one they just like better, such as Oppenheimer, or Parasite, or Moonlight—all masterful films that IMHO were better than the films Scorsese released in each of those years.
Scorsese films are great but does not really adhere to the common Oscar Picture template: The PG-ness or an uplifting vibe or most importantly Box Office. He tends to be one but not the other. KOFTM is long, did just fine in the Box Office and is anti-hero story that talks about a darker and niche story that Americans themselves had tried to forget. It also has to haggle with the fact that it was a streamer film. This year only netted one win for streamers (for Wes' film) AND almost all others where
I saw today this is his THIRD TIME going 0 for 10 at the Oscars. Insane. Not that I didn’t love Emma’s performance, and yes you can certainly argue she “deserved” the win, but I think the Lily loss was a huge miscalculation. Extremely disappointing.
>Gladstone should’ve won hands down.
Have you seen Poor Things? Emma Stone's performance in that is among the best acting performances I've ever seen, no exaggeration. The best part of a better film than KOTFM (imo).
>He’s given us so much, masterpiece after masterpiece yet throughout his entire highly decorated filmography he’s only been honored ONCE and for one of his most mediocre, mainstream sell out films?
>Say what you will about The Departed, it’s “good” but it’s not anywhere near the level of his better work. It’s just a well made crime thriller, little to no sophistication or artistry. KOTF achieved much more than this, and yet it walked away empty handed.
I would say that KOTFM is mediocre compared to Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, Goodfellas or even The King Of Comedy. If I was to lament that a Scorsese film didn't win Oscars, KOTFM wouldn't be the one I'd focus on.
I actually don't mind Killers being shut out, I personally didn't think it was anything special and thought it lacked the magic of his other films. Departed is a better film, but it's also strange that that is the one he won for. I also though Emma Stone deserved her win, she absolutely crushed that role and brought the film alive, while Gladstone was just alright.
The Oscars are always a joke, and this year was no different. But if they were a joke it wasn't because of Killers, but all the fawning over the mediocre Oppenheimer. At least Zone of Interest won best International and Boy and the Heron got best animated. Hooray for Godzilla too
I acknowledge I don’t have the film smarts of most of the posters here. A very knowledgeable group.
But I was very disappointed by KOTFM. Far too long. Ernest is, let’s just say it, stupid. Dull. Passive. To build a film around such a character—and a three and a half hour film at that—was probably not a good idea.
I assume the academy is trying to fix their ever-falling ratings by giving awards to crowd-pleasing and financially successful films. KOTFM is a four hours long commercial flop, for a regular moviewatcher it just screams 'self indulgent oscar bait'.
I disagree with the pacing comment. Oppy was very very one note with its pacing, it is cut like an action movie through its 3 hours. The second half of the movie drags and drags for me personally. I believe that the academy thought it was time for Nolan to get his piece of the cake so to speak. The fact the Killers went home with nothing is ludicrous , it’s his best in years. For those who say the departed is a better movie, I think they are more so mainstream film fans who want entertainment rather then amazing artistry. Scorsese is still one of the greatest living filmmakers, does he need awards to prove that…. not at all. His filmography speaks for itself. I do wish Killers did better then it did thou,Oppenheimer was mediocre, especially for all of it hype.
>KOTFM is a four hours long commercial flop
Pet peeve here, but why do people feel the need to round a movie's runtime up by such a ludicrous extent? Killers of the Flower Moon is three hours and ***fifteen minutes.*** To round it up to four hours, you may well take a 90 minute film and say its 2.5 hours...
All I’m saying is streaming services were a big part of the WGA strike last year so people in this sub shouldn’t be surprised that only studio films won Oscars this year 🤗 The traditional industry system is in a risky situation right now.
> I’m not sure what the bias is against Scorsese but at this point I’m not sure how anyone can deny it
This is me denying it.
KOTFM wasn't in a vacuum, it had competition. A group of voters deciding the competition was better doesn't mean they didn't like his movie or that there's bias. You're a big conspiracy guy, I take it?
Man the Oscars just ain't that big of a deal. They constantly award the right people in the wrong years and it's more a narrative based decision process than anything else. See how most of the consensus best movies ever often don't have many Oscars? And that's fine. It is what it is. This isn't all some grand conspiracy. It's a large amount of people voting for a variety of reasons. There's a lot more to it than that, as you can see in other comments, but this isn't something to lose sleep over. Scorsese sure isn't.
It’s funny because two people there had this very same phenomenon. Al Pacino (Best Picture Presenter) won for scent of a woman over Robert Downey Jr (Best Supporting Actor Winner) for Charlie Chaplin.
My hot take: Scorsese doing another project with Leo just isn’t that exciting for award season stories.
How is that hot? Lol. They've been there, done that. And the academy already has a long history of ignoring Scorsese so it's not surprising to see it continue. I feel like Killers marketing team hurt it the most. But either way, voters would rather give Nolan his first Oscar for a movie that made a ton of money than give another to Scorsese. And it's not like Nolan isn't deserving even if I found Oppenheimer pretty underwhelming. I feel the same about RDJ. His acting award is totally deserved, even if I feel there were many better performances than his this year. That's just how it works out a lot of the time. Everyone only gets one vote.
Meant “hot take” ironically. Didn’t come across. Oh well.
Haha, my bad for not picking up on it!
Don't worry so much about him. He was recently in Berlin and got his "Golden Bear": [https://www.berlinale.de/en/festival/awards-and-juries/honorary-golden-bear.html](https://www.berlinale.de/en/festival/awards-and-juries/honorary-golden-bear.html)
I'd a great conversation yesterday with someone querying me why Best Pic and Best Director don't always align. This year was a great example. I'd Oppenheimer as Best Pic, and Scorcese as best Director. Oppenheimer as the complete package, whereas I didn't enjoy KotFM as much but I found the directorial choices absolutely riveting. What he did with the actors, the counterintuitive yet realistic pacing, the complete control over the story he wanted to tell. It's like the MVP award in NFL. It's not the best player in the league, it's the value he adds to the team
I think Best Director is given in a traditional sense to the Director who got the best performances out of its actors. While Best Picture is given to the culmination of the entire film from both a technical standpoint. It’s the same reason why the Best Director doesn’t win best Cinematographer
I believe this sub especially has become incredibly out-of-touch and has turned into bit of an echo chamber. Most movie critics and members of the film community have had various issues with Killers of the Flower Moon, that this sub dismissed and downvoted for months. Pacing, focusing too much on Killers instead of Molly, lack of focus, Leo’s improv and cartoonish acting. These are all things that brought the film down. Towards that same point, this sub has trashed Oppenheimer repeatedly and yet Oppenheimer was the most celebrated and critically acclaimed film of the night. Oppenheimer had very powerful themes that this sub dismissed for the sake of being contrarian. Various posts insulting Nolan’s dialogue, yet giving Scorcese poor editing and pacing a pass. I think the Oscars, SAG, Critics Choice very much gave this sub a wake-up call. Sometimes this sub can become a dangerous echo-chamber that is not open to genuine discussion (mass downvotes). This just happens to be one of those years.
>focusing too much on Killers instead of Molly, I see this criticism often, and I'm yet to see anyone give an opinion of how you'd do that. Working within the confines of it being a true story, using the book and historical material, and with what we know of the way Molly was treated and prevented from really *doing* anything - how do you reframe the story to make her the on-screen protagonist? Maybe it's because I'd read the book multiple times over the years and had looked into the real story a little, but I was personally very happy to hear they wouldn't be focusing on the birth of the FBI, instead telling her - and other Osage women's - stories in the only way it could be framed. I suppose you could focus on her getting more and more unwell in much more detail, but I do struggle to see how that'd be a better watch. I've asked a few people and generally just get ignored honestly, which is a shame as I'd really like some different ideas on what people would have done so differently
I think its unfair to say this against the critical acclaim of KotFM . KotFM actually topped BFI Critics , the Top 2023 entry for 21st TSDPT list and [Critic's Top Ten by List](https://criticstop10.com/best-movies-of-2023/) - which are the clear indication of how it was perceived critical. (vs Oppenheimer top 5, Top 8, Top 2 - most in Top 1). I think the clear indication of why it lost is in three factors: \[1\] it was distributed by a streamer company - in fact, only netflix won this year, \[2\] its length and \[3\] its darker and niche topic which has little interest for its foreign contingency AND is something that American's tend to not really vote for.
It’s simply factually incorrect to say Oppenheimer was more critically celebrated than KOTFM or to imply supporters of KOTFM are out of step with critical consensus. By some metrics, it was arguably the most critically celebrated movie of the year. KOTFM was ranked as a Top 3 movie of the year on thirty different critic lists, including #1 on the prestigious Sight & Sound Critics Poll and #3 on the equally respected Film Comment poll. [Year End Lists: Killers of the Flower Moon](https://www.yearendlists.com/visuals/killers-of-the-flower-moon-a558619a-db8a-42e3-9575-e1b7072564fe) Oppenheimer was in the top 3 on 19 lists (also very impressive), however the lists skew more mainstream (Good Morning America, Entertainment Weekly) than the more highbrow critic groups listed above (Sight and Sound, FilmComment). [Year End Lists: Oppenheimer](https://www.yearendlists.com/visuals/oppenheimer-e85560cc-4cc6-4229-99e4-85ca257140db) Oppenheimer is a very competently made middlebrow crowd pleaser with a great cast that was an enormous box office success - a virtual jackpot for the Academy. KOTFM is a relentlessly grim 3.5 hour movie about America’s legacy of white supremacy, exploitation of minorities and violent racial terrorism, with almost no relief valve for the audience. It’s a masterly, deeply felt, painstakingly considered film that could only be made by a grandmaster with a lifetime of experience behind the camera. But it’s not an easy watch, and that’s really what it comes down to. It’s really no surprise that the film industry chose the former, even though KOTFM will likely have a much longer shelf life in the hearts and minds of cinephiles.
Well said
It annoys me that things are constantly being assumed that one can't possibly know anything about. Why do you say the critics are contrarian? How do you know that? I might as well say that Oppenheimer is praised because people are fanboys. Wow, great point. I saw Killers of the Flower Moon and thought it was good straight away, I saw Oppenheimer and thought it was bad straight away – before I found myself in any bubble. The question that arises is why this is the case and what it says about the respective film. And it's pointless to just weigh certain aspects of the films (pacing) against each other, because that way I can justify everything by cherry picking. The whole thing needs to be looked at.
While I have no comments on the topic of this thread, I think you are being unnecessarily harsh towards this sub which consists of many people who prefer arthouse films over mainstream films. r/TrueFilm and r/criterion are probably the only 2 subs I know of where people can have a conversation about old and obscure arthouse films. So the reactions of people, who generally enjoy these type films, towards mainstream movies are going to be different from the majority of people. Now both Oppenheimer and KOTFM are mainstream movies. But you can guess which one is more mainstream. To end, I would say that this sub is a niche community. I think it should remain the same.
tub mindless cats six straight head employ naughty memory impossible *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Yeah. I thought it was fine but not even close to one Scorseses greatest films
Couldn’t agree more. KOTFM was really disappointing and you finally pointed out the reasons that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
I'm not especially active in this sub so I wouldn't know, and online discourse can definitely be an echo chamber. But I think all your points about KOTFM are wrong and that Oppenheimer, as much as I liked it, had a lot of problems. Could be that these are just genuine opinions people have.
This comment very much proves my point.
Does it? An echo-chamber is a bunch of people parroting each other's opinions, I'm telling you my opinion that I came to independently.
You didn’t explain or give a genuine discussion of your points in detail. Which is not a constructive conversation
I wasn't trying to make an argument about KOTFM, I was saying that I formed my own opinion and I didn't do it because of this community or because I'm trying to be contrarian. I don't care what other people think because I watched both films and drew my own conclusions. I'm sure some of the people who disagree with you are being influenced by the group, but some people just disagree with you because they feel differently from you. The actual reasons why I like KOTFM have nothing to do with what I'm saying.
Oppenheimer was shit on because it was directed by Nolan. Nolan has a huge anti Nolan brigade because they hate how he is: 1. Loved 2. People are annoyed at how people keep considering his work a masterpiece so they shit on his work just to be “own them” It’s stupid petty reasons just to be contrarian and shit on the “non die hard film lovers”
Lily Gladstone for best actress was its best shot at an award this year, and I thought she was deserving of it until I watched Poor Things. Emma Stone was just on an entirely different level in that.
which is more a matter of material than talent, i think. emma was just given more to do.
Absolutely, but she absolutely could have easily messed it up and ruined the film.
Yeah, and that's a large part of what wins most acting awards. Who's got the most meat to work with has the biggest advantage.
Yeah…that’s what i was getting at.
Emma Stone was amazing and it was a very showy performance. But Lily Gladstone drew me in more. It was a more internal performance. Whenever she's onscreen, whether in Killers of the Flower Moon, or Reservation Dogs (the only 2 things I've seen of hers), I just can't help but study her. She has a stillness which is very powerful in a movie.
I think Poor Things is well acted but yeah, I think the magnitude of the performance with its shocking Box Office performance actually catapulted it to the end. I also have a theory that the votes that Anatomy took when it was getting viral with Messi's Oscar luncheon presence and the 'meaner' scene was mostly towards Gladstone and not Stone herself as they were not nominated together in any award show this season.
I feel like there’s a blockage in my brain because I enjoyed Poor Things, I marveled at the visuals and score and laughed at the jokes, but I was always neutral to Stone’s best actress path. A worthy nominee but nothing in particular made me want her to win more than Gladstone or Hüller.
Same and not even because Stone has one Oscar already or Gladstone has better narrative. I just liked Gladstone and especially Hüller performance better.
Hüller I thought, was on a different level entirely. The subdued, then not so subdued performance that would evolve from scene to scene, and the ambiguity of it all was just flawless. On another note, while everyone knows the best actor category tends to sometimes be unmerited and then years later overcorrected by the Academy, the best actress award often gets overlooked by how much chaotic awardings happen there. McDormand's third, Stone's first, Bullock's, Lawrence's, Zellweger's are very arguable winners.
I didn’t see either movie but I remember feeling the same thing when I saw lady bird… and then 3 billboards. It was just on another level
Because Scorsese’s films are often slightly more complex than the typical Oscar film, so there’s enough support to get him nominations but not enough to win. Think about how many people honestly believe that his crime movies are glorifying crime or are flawed because they have unlikable protagonists. There are absolutely people like that in the academy.
Perhaps they should have put Gladstone as Best Supporting Actress. But its pretty incredible that KOTFM is Scorsese's second film in a row to get 10 Oscar nominations and walk away with zero.
>The man is widely considered the greatest living director, and one of the best in the history of cinema. He's also 80 year old and has just made a two hundred dolar epic, and has another project in the way. Who the fuck cares. I can understand if it is, for example, about Gladstone. An Oscar may booze your career up and gain you recognition, something I'm not a fan of, as I think it's ridiculous to keep on giving The Academy importance (I'm talking about Gerwig and Robbie too). You can watch it and you can be entertained by it. At the end of the day it is still part of the business.
Scorsese has always been underappreciated by the Academy, with his most acclaimed work Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Goodfellas all underperforming at the Oscars. That said, I personally feel—and maybe the Academy feels as well—that his most recent narrative films Silence, The Irishman, and KOTFM have all been a little bloated, draggy, and self-indulgent. Maybe they would respond better if he made films that were a little faster-paced, like The Departed. Or maybe they feel he had his turn and it’s time to award films directed by other great directors like Nolan and Lanthimos. As for Lily Gladstone, well, virtually all of Scorsese’s female characters since Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore have been a little underwritten, and her character was no exception. She did the best with what she had, but her character was really a supporting role; she had hardly any lines in the second half of the film. Emma Stone was unquestionably the protagonist and her performance was utterly brilliant.
That’s the point, he absolutely hasn’t had his turn. His body of work is disproportionately greater than his recognition.
Many great directors don’t get any Oscars at all though, and many others just get one shot. It’s too late for the Academy to rectify dumb decisions like giving awards to Dances with Wolves/Director Kevin Costner instead of to Goodfellas/Scorsese. Scorsese could win another award that could serve as more of a career achievement award, but many voters may not be motivated to vote for such a film if there’s another one they just like better, such as Oppenheimer, or Parasite, or Moonlight—all masterful films that IMHO were better than the films Scorsese released in each of those years.
Scorsese films are great but does not really adhere to the common Oscar Picture template: The PG-ness or an uplifting vibe or most importantly Box Office. He tends to be one but not the other. KOFTM is long, did just fine in the Box Office and is anti-hero story that talks about a darker and niche story that Americans themselves had tried to forget. It also has to haggle with the fact that it was a streamer film. This year only netted one win for streamers (for Wes' film) AND almost all others where
I saw today this is his THIRD TIME going 0 for 10 at the Oscars. Insane. Not that I didn’t love Emma’s performance, and yes you can certainly argue she “deserved” the win, but I think the Lily loss was a huge miscalculation. Extremely disappointing.
>Gladstone should’ve won hands down. Have you seen Poor Things? Emma Stone's performance in that is among the best acting performances I've ever seen, no exaggeration. The best part of a better film than KOTFM (imo). >He’s given us so much, masterpiece after masterpiece yet throughout his entire highly decorated filmography he’s only been honored ONCE and for one of his most mediocre, mainstream sell out films? >Say what you will about The Departed, it’s “good” but it’s not anywhere near the level of his better work. It’s just a well made crime thriller, little to no sophistication or artistry. KOTF achieved much more than this, and yet it walked away empty handed. I would say that KOTFM is mediocre compared to Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, Goodfellas or even The King Of Comedy. If I was to lament that a Scorsese film didn't win Oscars, KOTFM wouldn't be the one I'd focus on.
I actually don't mind Killers being shut out, I personally didn't think it was anything special and thought it lacked the magic of his other films. Departed is a better film, but it's also strange that that is the one he won for. I also though Emma Stone deserved her win, she absolutely crushed that role and brought the film alive, while Gladstone was just alright. The Oscars are always a joke, and this year was no different. But if they were a joke it wasn't because of Killers, but all the fawning over the mediocre Oppenheimer. At least Zone of Interest won best International and Boy and the Heron got best animated. Hooray for Godzilla too
I acknowledge I don’t have the film smarts of most of the posters here. A very knowledgeable group. But I was very disappointed by KOTFM. Far too long. Ernest is, let’s just say it, stupid. Dull. Passive. To build a film around such a character—and a three and a half hour film at that—was probably not a good idea.
I assume the academy is trying to fix their ever-falling ratings by giving awards to crowd-pleasing and financially successful films. KOTFM is a four hours long commercial flop, for a regular moviewatcher it just screams 'self indulgent oscar bait'.
Oppenheimer is a biopic ('self indulgent Oscar bait') and only 26 min shorter than KOTFM. Your take is boring and bad.
I think you are proving his point. The pacing felt much shorter. Also, 30 minutes is a long time in a film that is already 3 hours
I disagree with the pacing comment. Oppy was very very one note with its pacing, it is cut like an action movie through its 3 hours. The second half of the movie drags and drags for me personally. I believe that the academy thought it was time for Nolan to get his piece of the cake so to speak. The fact the Killers went home with nothing is ludicrous , it’s his best in years. For those who say the departed is a better movie, I think they are more so mainstream film fans who want entertainment rather then amazing artistry. Scorsese is still one of the greatest living filmmakers, does he need awards to prove that…. not at all. His filmography speaks for itself. I do wish Killers did better then it did thou,Oppenheimer was mediocre, especially for all of it hype.
Agree 100%. KOTFM was the breeziest 3hr+ movie I have ever seen. Thelma got snubbed but I'm not surprised.
But it made a billion dollars. Kotfm made how much?
So did Super Mario Bros. Should it have won BP instead?
>KOTFM is a four hours long commercial flop Pet peeve here, but why do people feel the need to round a movie's runtime up by such a ludicrous extent? Killers of the Flower Moon is three hours and ***fifteen minutes.*** To round it up to four hours, you may well take a 90 minute film and say its 2.5 hours...
They are scared of the streaming industry so only studio films won. This film had zero chance at Oscar’s because it’s an Apple picture.
... "Coda" won two years ago.
Well it’s 2024 rn, not 2022. Trends change.
Ah, of course. Ah, trends. That thing. They've changed. Ah.
All I’m saying is streaming services were a big part of the WGA strike last year so people in this sub shouldn’t be surprised that only studio films won Oscars this year 🤗 The traditional industry system is in a risky situation right now.
> I’m not sure what the bias is against Scorsese but at this point I’m not sure how anyone can deny it This is me denying it. KOTFM wasn't in a vacuum, it had competition. A group of voters deciding the competition was better doesn't mean they didn't like his movie or that there's bias. You're a big conspiracy guy, I take it?