Discuss Green Book
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LA Times - "Green Book is the worst best picture winner since 'Crash'".
posted by rudely_murraySTAFFMOD on February 26, 2019 at 3:16 AM
Yep. While Crash and A Beautiful Mind are worse winners (looking at the past couple of decades), this film is a terrible choice to represent the year.
Reply by jorgito2001
on February 26, 2019 at 10:55 AM
I AM curious about this one, but there's no way to watch it right now (legally)...hard to believe the director of 'Dumb & Dumber' is now and Oscar winner ain't it? lol
Reply by bratface
on February 26, 2019 at 9:42 PM
Here are a few articles explaining the reasons why it was a bad choice:
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/02/oscars-2019-green-book-nabs-best-picture/583510/
https://www.indiewire.com/2018/12/green-book-controversy-shirley-family-lies-mahershala-ali-apology-1202028687/
https://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/ny-ent-greenbookcontroversies-20190225-story.html
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/24/entertainment/green-book-best-picture-oscars/index.html
https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/oscars/a26035285/green-book-controversy-true-story/
Reply by rudely_murray
on February 26, 2019 at 9:51 PM
BlacKkKlansman is based on a 'real life situation' - the memoir of central character Ron Stallworth.
Reply by movie_nazi
on March 16, 2019 at 10:55 PM
I haven't seen the other Oscar nominees for Best Picture but this was a damn good movie.
Green Book (2018) - 8 outta 10 stars
Reply by mcse2000ca
on March 19, 2019 at 6:02 AM
Family was proven to be lying about the relationship there are audio files from Shirley himself
Reply by movie_nazi
on March 19, 2019 at 7:33 AM
Yeah, but the film doesn't completely pretend its a true story. I believe it said at the beginning inspired by a true story.
Reply by Midi-chlorian_Count
on March 19, 2019 at 11:16 AM
I haven't seen it (and probably won't as the in-laws have been raving about it thus hardening my opinion that this is a deliberate sentimental pull at a target audience) but do you think it is possible he wrote / directed this as an elaborate joke or to be able to stick two fingers up at someone or other? Got to be a possibility...
I mean, do you really go - Dumb & Dumber, Something About Mary, Hall Pass, etc... then Green Book?
Reply by movie_nazi
on March 19, 2019 at 11:19 AM
I doubt it. All comedic actors and/or directors secretly want to make the transition to mainstream and be taken as a "serious" player. Even though they may outwardly state, "Psssh! Who me? Naaaa!" .
Reply by Midi-chlorian_Count
on March 19, 2019 at 11:22 AM
Well yeah, certainly true of actors but look at his writing credits:- Dumb & Dumber (1994) to Dumb & Dumber To (2014)! Twenty solid years+ of lowbrow before this curve ball!
Reply by movie_nazi
on March 19, 2019 at 11:26 AM
LOL, I gotta admit I did like a lot of his 90s comedies. But definitely lowbrow.
Reply by JustinJackFlash
on March 19, 2019 at 11:44 AM
A film based on a true story in which not all of it turns out to be true? Wow, that's never happened before.
A film winning the Best Picture over other more artistically deserving choices? At the Oscars?!! Surely not!
I haven't seen Green Book yet. And yeah, It probably isn't the best film of the year. I can imagine it laying on the sentimentality. But it does sound like an intriguing story. And I bet all this fuss is exaggerated. The best film never wins the Best Picture Oscar. Hell, most of the time the best film isn't even nominated.
I do also find it odd how Crash is always the film brought up in these situations. We get it. It's a half decent film that's been vastly raised above it's station. But there have been worse winners since. How about The Departed just one year later? A passable, thriller, remake showered with Oscars merely because it had Scorsese at the helm and they had to award him quick because they'd ignored all his earlier, far superior work.
Reply by movie_nazi
on March 19, 2019 at 1:30 PM
THANK YOU! OMG, I've have been preaching this shit for years. If they think this choice is bad what about passing up Denzel Washington for best actor for Malcolm X for Al Pacino's Scent of a Woman performance (OO-AH!)? The Oscars are a friggin' joke mostly. A lot of the nominations are good but the winners are usually not the best ones that year. There is way too much politics involved and I am not talking about general social politics. I'm talking about Hollywood business politics. A person's brand shoots way up with a statue and there are a lot of machinations at play that leads up to the "winners" we are presented with. I always just use the Oscars to scoop up the nominees list and check out those films but never ever watch the awards show live nor take into account the winners.
Reply by JustinJackFlash
on March 19, 2019 at 2:46 PM
Haha, all that wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. And that's probably a side we will never be privy too.
And yeah, Pacino also famously won simply because they'd turned him down so many times before. This kind of thing happens so often it's hard to take the Oscars seriously. Even if a film I genuinely love wins I take it as a hollow victory.
I don't think there is an awards show that can get things generally right and in a completely unbiased way. But the Oscars definitely isn't it.
The way they heavily lean towards conservative, box ticking films (Person with ailment, triumph against adversity, period setting, etc) over the inventive and daring. I find it so predictable and tiresome. And this is why the likes of Forrest Gump will almost always triumph over Pulp Fiction.
Reply by JustinJackFlash
on June 27, 2019 at 11:12 AM
Having now seen Green Book I have to say I did enjoy it. No it's definitely not the best film of the year. But as far as the Oscars go I don't see it as out of place amongst other Best Picture winners as this is exactly the kind of film they tend to champion. And to be honest I even preferred it to last year's winner The Shape of Water. Which I did find a little forced and preachy.
I took it as a made up story about fictional characters so the dispute as to it's authenticity as truth made little difference to me. All films are made up stories and it's not like this was based on a hugely famous incident where truth bending for entertainment might be a bit more questionable.
Sentimental? It was a little. But I was really dreading it to be full of sweeping, manipulative music and cloying dialogue but it turned out to be a lot less syrupy than I feared.
White Savior Syndrome? Not at all. Both characters saved each other. When they were in jail because of Tony's violent methods it was Dr Shirley that saves him through dignified actions. What I appreciated about the film was that it was about class just as much as race.
Both characters spend the film learning from each other and growing as people through their experiences together. Tony learned to look beyond race and Shirley learned to look beyond class. The fact that Tony saves Shirley from a couple of kerffufles is superfluous. Those are incidents that provide the setting and backdrop for the story, not to paint it as a story of heroism on Tony's part. Sorry but this is just another case of the easily offended seeing things the way they want to see it for another excuse to make some noise.
Reply by A-Dubya
on June 28, 2019 at 11:23 PM
I actually thought Shawshank was the best film that year. Don't get me wrong, I love and own all three, but that was just a great year for films in my opinion.