SeanC

One thing I find notable about this Oscar season is the comparative lack of films with near-certain holds at multiple acting nominations. Look at the main BP contenders: Carol - Blanchett and Mara both seem likely, though the latter could fall victim to category confusion. Spotlight - this initially looked like it was poised to be the one to beat in the acting categories with three noms, but now people are largely thinking of two at most, and maybe only one (or none, based on some awards bodies). The Martian - only Damon. Room - Larson for sure; Tremblay remains a longshot. The Revenant - only DiCaprio (some have talked of a surprise Hardy nomination). Mad Max: Fury Road - none. The Big Short - one, if any. Bridge of Spies - only Rylance. Brooklyn - unless BAFTA is picking up on something nobody else did, only Ronan. Straight Outta Compton - none. Creed - one seems like the most that's likely. Steve Jobs - two possible, though I think this movie is a candidate to get totally forgotten. The Danish Girl - two possible.

Mad Max and George Miller miss their first notable nominations, albeit in the former case in a field of only five nominees. It still managed seven nominations, fourth overall. Two nominations for Alicia Vikander again. I'll be really interested to see how this all plays out with the Academy. Hey, Julie Walters got a supporting nomination. She's a scream in Brooklyn. Mark Ruffalo gets into supporting, which, if I'm not mistaken, is the first major supporting nomination for one of the Spotlight gentlemen.

As somebody from Atlantic Canada, I was surprised that they all got the right geographic area but then only one could connect "Terre Neuve" to Newfoundland. I guess if you didn't speak French?

She's still around in the DOFP epilogue, so whatever happens she's not being shuffled offstage.

Those stories exist to develop the characters and their skills. In Sansa's case, especially, the Vale is meant to provide a stage for growth as a player with more modest initial stakes, something that would be impossible elsewhere (as the show aptly demonstrated).

I've wondered about that before. Ned is, I guess, mainly remembered by the boys when talking about leadership or combat stuff; Arya also thinks about his ideas about justice. I guess there's probably not much Catelyn would have been telling them that's relevant to their experiences (and, in Jon's case, she obviously wasn't giving him advice at all). Sansa never thinks of any advice from either Ned or Cat, presumably because the premise of her character arc is that neither of them taught her anything relevant to politics or the real world.

Unless I'm mistaken, a "white slaver" is somebody who pulls people into "white slavery", i.e., forced prostitution. Something of an overstatement either way, of course. I think there's supposed to be a sort of overpowering sexual attraction on Amidala's part that ultimately overwhelms her better judgement. This doesn't work, for a multitude of reasons, including lack of actor chemistry, Lucas' inability to write romance convincingly, and his related inability to direct actors. Looking back on the prequels, and TPM in particular, it jumps out at me what a counterproductive character Qui-Gon Jinn was. All his being in the narrative really does is get in the way of the relationship between Anakin and Obi-Wan, when it's the latter that is supposed to be one of the cruxes of the trilogy.

I don't think Sansa "doesn't want to see". She does her best to make sense of things, without any help, at a pretty young age; she's a naif at the start, no doubt, but a lot of her hopes after Robert's death I think have to also be understood as a horribly abused kid trying to cling to hope that things might improve. When she goes to meet Dontos, for instance, she's definitely hoping for a knightly rescuer, which has fairytale overtones, but...wouldn't anyone hope for a competent rescuer? What else should she want? Sansa doesn't really have anything to offer anybody in exchange for their aid, so altruism is really all she can bank on. And she's aware that Dontos is pretty shabby, but there's nobody else offering to help, so she tries to make herself feel as good as possible about the risk she's taking by agreeing. She often uses her songs she loves to talk herself into going forward.

I've been a longtime skeptic on Straight Outta Compton's chances for a nomination, but it's looking more and more possible. Conversely, unless it's a big surprise it feels like Creed's momentum never really got going; granted, the Academy's relationship to sequels is fraught and generally not all that receptive. Brooklyn finally gets some good news, after a precursor season that has been pretty dispiriting for them outside of Ronan.

From watching the movies I thought the prophecy was ironic and Anakin restored balance by equalizing the number of Jedi and Sith. Now, in retrospect, that doesn't really work, since that would mean the Force was back out of balance after Vader killed the Emperor and then died himself.From one of Lucas' confusing explanations that I read once, the problem with the "balance" was that the Sith existed at all. So Vader ultimately restored balance by killing the Emperor. One of the big problems with the prequels is that nobody ever supplies any detail about what balancing means.

Not that they much cared for him regardless. But the significance of Han's reaction is not what it did or didn't communicate to the other characters (they shouldn't really have been able to see much of anything), but what is communicated to the audience.

That you don't care for it doesn't negate that Vader's redemption was a key part of Star Wars. He was the main villain of the OT, and he was redeemed by the narrative in the end. Whether that will repeat in the sequel series, who can say?

Heh, they actually took that photo back at SDCC; there's an older one with all those people plus the cast of the ill-starred Fantastic Four. The younger castmembers are absent from this particular photo. The current run of X-Men films are the strongest the franchise has ever been, to my mind (I was a fan of Singer's first two films too, but FC and DOFP took it to a new level).

The PGA nominations are tomorrow. Should provide a look at where the Picture field stands, in terms of the lower-tier films. If Fury Road gets on that list, I'll feel secure in its nomination chances.

The Forest commits one of those minor movie sins that bug me: casting a non-American actor and then making them do an American accent for no reason.

It turns out that the ideal Jedi are the bros from Entourage.

Yeah, I get that, but the idea that those emotions seem to more or less invariably lead you to the Dark Side is still a completely different moral schematic than we've seen for people who aren't Force-sensitive. The whole climax of ROTJ hinges on the idea that if Luke acts on hate toward Vader (or the Emperor) he will turn evil and thus the Emperor wins.

I don't recall that distinction ever being made in the movies. Regardless, the point remains: romantic attachment is something all Jedi are supposed to avoid lest it turn them evil, whereas that is not something non-Jedi have to do.

As far as what turned Ben into Kylo Ren goes, people who are attuned to the Force seem to exist in a completely different moral universe than everybody else in Star Wars, in the sense that seemingly even what most people would call appropriate emotional reactions to a given situation can turn them evil. Yoda and Mace Windu didn't even want to train Anakin in the prequels because he was attached to his mom -- and apparently that actually did help turn him evil in the end; likewise, the code forbidding emotional connections to his wife, which also in the end helped turn him evil; granted, the useless Jedi Council didn't help there. But you see that in the OT's climax, too, where Luke seemingly isn't allowed to hate Darth Vader or the Emperor or else it will lead to him becoming evil too, despite the fact that most would say he has every reason to hate them. Yet none of the above seems to apply to people who aren't Force-sensitive. Han Solo can hate, love, fear, whatever, and still be a good guy. With the Force you'd almost conclude that you have to be either a detached monk or evil. Though if Luke has a kid, as many are speculating, evidently he hasn't been following the old Jedi Council's notions of chastity -- though he subsequently lived for X years as a hermit in perfect seclusion, like Yoda and Obi-Wan (some of the discussion about Luke's absence has debated whether his leaving was irresponsible or out-of-character in light of the ongoing threat, but it's worth noting that both Yoda and Obi-Wan canonically did that too in the OT and the prequels).

"Tell the truth! Tell the truth!" "Okay, er, the truth is that that moment works much better in context than in the trailer." Actually a pretty solid drama, as it turns out; it's no Spotlight, but its handling of the story generally feels appropriate. Will Smith is really terrific; it reminded me that I wish he had stretched himself more back when he was at the peak of his box office power. Many of the reviews of this have singled out the scenes between Omalu and his eventual wife as unnecessary to the main drama, but given that the toll on Omalu's personal life is fairly important to the story, I don't really agree (even if Prema maybe gives a few too many inspirational speeches).

I've been to see a bunch of movies lately (multiple trips to the theatre, in the case of Star Wars), and based on my surveying of audience reaction, the biggest impending hits are: - Zootopia: Everybody goes wild for the sloth scene, every time. Quite a turnaround, since the teaser made this look utterly boring. - Central Intelligence: This one has only shown up in theatres showing what I assume marketers tagged as "black movies" (Creed & Concussion) -- even though I'm in Charlottetown, and the audience for both is white as Wonderbread -- but it's brought the house down both times.

One of the things that looking at the list of top-grossing films (unadjusted) drives home is what a stupendous outlier Titanic was -- it came out a full 12 years before anything else on the list with it; everything else is 2009 or later.

I don't think it's relevant to include a film that he abandoned before beginning his current run of films and which was belatedly released without his involvement a half-decade later.

Anakin was, sure, but I don't think Han would know anything about that either way. How old was Rey when she was dropped off on Jakku? I couldn't find anything about the age of the girl playing Young Rey.

About that, it's been a while since I've watched the OT (I don't care to give money to the Special Editions), but I don't remember Luke really being some sort of genius techie that would trigger recognition of that sort. Though I suppose Bride of Luke could have been, and presumably Han would have known her.