Melanie Lynskey was outstanding along with Wood. I really enjoyed this, perfect mix of funny/hopeless and even a little sweet. Other than Bojack and maybe s1 of Bloodline I can't think of any NF original I liked more.

Re-watching the first John Wick film just to scratch an action movie itch. For a mindless shoot-em-up revenge film, this one really does punch above its weight. Great sense of style, fight choreography, supporting cast. And that car.

Hailee Steinfield is very talented. I recommend checking out her stellar performance in The Edge of Seventeen.

That story is a life, and life is open ended and difficult to grapple with

Final scene also more than a slight homage to In the Mood for Love, which is the antithesis of a movie with a tidy resolution

I agree with this take. However there are good ways to do open ended and bad ways to do open ended. I think Moonlight was more towards the bad and less towards the good.

Perhaps mostly because it over does the open endedness. It would be fine if it were only the ending that was so open ended, but it's the entire film. It's not a matter of things being wrapped up, most of the time they aren't even continued. It's a film full of story archs being started and then being cut off without, not only resolution, but even sufficient continuence. Frankly that isn't like life and that isn't good story telling, writing or directing either. I think Moonlight was a film with a lot of potential that continuously failed to live up to it. I don't think it deserves either a best picture or a best director award. If it wins BP, I think it's due more to it being a black, gay film than it is to it actually being truly worthy entirely on it's own merit.

And I hate saying that, because I hate anything that the stuck in the past, ignorant, hate spewing, bigots can point to and think it validates their feelings/opinions. So I wouldn't say a thing like that easily or lightly.

I say it because, in this particular case, it happens to be true.

How do we know you're not a hate-spewing ignorant bigot when you say something like

That's exactly what a racist would say!

Just saw Moonlight. I think its flaws partly lie in its successes; I liked the interaction between Chiron, Juan and Theresa so it was frustrating that there wasn't more of that. The were generally too many large gaps in Chriron's life, particularly as people who were important to his life were not given enough space to develop.

A review by the Times critic Camilla Long has created a stink due to a weird, somewhat bigoted remark about the movie not being relevant to audiences because most of viewers will be middle-class white people, and because there are apparently loads of movies about the same subject matters. Dumb comments but have to agree she's right that Moonlight could have benefited from more plot.

Well there's plenty of posts in this very thread that would leave people calling me a SJW or White Knight.

When the trailer was out for the new Ghostbusters movie I said that at least some of the hate for it was due to misogyny. Sounds kind of like a SJW or White Knight type of thing to say.

Now I'm saying Moonlight isn't a good enough film to win BP on it's own merits (because, spoiler alert, it's not,) and thus if it does win it's more due to being a black/gay film. Sounds like something a racist bigot would say.

So there you have it. On one hand you have me saying something typically written by a SJW/white knight and on the other hand you have me saying something typically written by a racist/bigot.

Yet they were both said by one person, the same person, me.

And I stand by them both equally.

Why?

Because it's possible for the same person to feel both of them, and it's possible for them both to be equally true, at the same time, in the same reality, in the same world.

Why because Noether people or the world we live in are black and white.

It's all always various shades of grey.

Things aren't that overly simple. They can't be that easily and narrowly boiled down.

But you've been here in this world for a while now Kioshk, I think you know all of that to be true already.

If you don't think it deserves a BP Oscar, you can say so without the disclaimer that you're most definitely not a bigot imo.

And kioshk was obviously joking.

Perhaps I should be able to make that assertion without adding that disclaimer to it. I don't agree that I can though, especially not in this climate we're currently living in.

And nothing in kioshk's post suggests he was joking. The man does have quite a history of joking in past posts though, so it's possible he was here as well...although usually he's a bit more obvious about it.

To say that Moonlight is a black, gay film, while specifically true, kind of misses the point. To say that the arcs don't resolve also misses the point. The movie is not a neat story; in fact, it's closer to a poem than a story. There's breaks and stanzas and you have to do a lot of work to fill in the blank spaces that are up on the screen, and there's a lot of blank spaces because the character is very quiet. But I don't think one should mistake silence for nothing happening, because there's clearly a lot of turmoil going on inside his mind. I mean the final scene is basically just images with blank inner-dialogue boxes that you're filling in as you're watching it.

I've already drawn the comparison to In the Mood for Love, which was about heterosexual Asians and approaches the forbidden nature of something in a similar manner as Moonlight did. I'd also draw a comparison to a completely different type of movie called Of Gods and Men, which if you thought Moonlight & In the Mood for Love were boring, avoid it at all costs. There's a film about priests that is dominated by silence in the face of absolute tragedy. There's a hell of a lot happening in silence, and your hand isn't being held with dialogue from a screenwriter to clue you in to every single thing. These types of movies are demanding of you as an audience member to engage with it, because you can't be lazily watching the film or else you've missed the trick and wasted your time.

So with Moonlight, if you really thought it was simply a movie about a gay and black man with bad story telling, I'd say you missed the trick and wasted your time.

So one of my all time favorite films is Brokeback Mountain. Easily in my top 10 if not my top 5 all time. Incredibly slow moving film, and also one who's main character doesn't talk, or even, move much, yet he is able to tell you a whole lot with every little thing he does do if you're looking for it.

Always gets me when that absolute masterpiece of a film is written off as 'that gay cowboy movie.'

I'm not dismissing Moonlight as just being 'a black, gay movie,' I'm saying if the academy gives it best picture I think a big part of their reason for that will be 'oh look, it's a black film, and it's a gay film, let's give it best picture, that's cool and progressive of us.'

My opinion is that if the academy was judging the film entirely on the contents of it's character and not on the color of it's skin or sexual orientation that it's character would be found lacking and not worthy of an Oscar.

Clearly you disagree.

Also I don't need my hand held, but if I'm going to have to 'work for it,' I'd like there to be a payoff. In this case the little payoff there was, was insufficient.

Brokeback Mountain, as mentioned above, long film to sit through. Filled with a lot of pain and sorrow. Yet ultimately worth the sit, because it pays off. It's all woven together beautifully into a heartbreaking yet incredibly beautiful and memorable final package.

Are there moments of raw truth and beauty in Moonlight? Sure there are.

Do I understand the characters and their struggles? For the most part, yes. Although I found Ali's character a bit white washed/unrealistic and thus am not sure if he deserves an Oscar either, though he is a good actor.

Does the film tie together to form a powerful final package with worthwhile payoffs? Nope, not the Moonlight I watched anyway.

Godspeed Bill Paxton....

Game over, man.



Saw Moonlight last night, thought it was pretty darn good. Ali was fantastic but similar to posters above Juan's brief presence in the film left me wanting more from him.

I would definitely say Manchester was my favourite of the three BP favourites, and La La Land was definitely my least favourite. IMO speaks to how weak of a year of film it was compared to others if La La Land crushes at awards.

Saw on a betting site 9+ Oscar's is a favorite for La La Land.

me too

Get Out - Loved this, and potentially permanently alienated Trump-supporting relatives on Facebook after having a few drinks afterwards.

Most entertained I've been from a movie in a while.

From this weekend in 1987: Some Kind of Wonderful and A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.

The first is a Hughes-written high school film. Decent non-standard resolution in some ways, but the final "act" (hate that term) is mostly stupid. Bad story choices imo.

Also the only black/hispanic people in the film are the bad kids in detention.

Nightmare 3 is bad. This was a movie part of me had wanted to see since being scared of the VHS cover as a child almost 30 years ago, so it had that going for it at least.

The star Heather Langenkamp is a horrendous actress; she's also in the first one and then in a meta role playing herself in New Nightmare (which I saw within the last year with the same criticism). How they thought she could star in movies, I have no idea. It's an oppressively bad performance that hurts the movie a lot.

It makes me wonder, how hard is it to find decent actors? Is it sheer laziness/budget in not auditioning enough people? Is there nepotism? Are they casting too much for a certain type/looks and not putting enough weight on raw acting skills? In this case, was it maybe just lack of rehearsal, a bad director, and/or time constraints? Is this situation better 30 years later because the potential talent pool is so big?

It seems to me that with literally tens of thousands of people desperate to break in (millions if we consider the casuals), there's little excuse for bad performances. Even in a cheap horror movie, attention to detail matters (or should).

There is some great creativity and effects on display with the way Freddy appears and kills people. It's a shame they couldn't write a halfway decent script and get halfway decent performances.

Check out "Near Dark" if you can find it,Baltimore.
It was made in 87 and has a great role played by Bill Paxton, R.I.P.

Kinda like a vampire western.

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Incredible upset for Best Picture by Moonlight, my god.

Good Oscars broadcast...Kimmel was great...the winners were suitably humbled and the speeches dignified...no real surprises, but---


Uh, check that...

Holy ****.

Lollllllll so amazing

That is unbelievable, I was floored watching that live.

Looks like Beatty was given the wrong envelope...he had Emma Stone's winning envelope, didn't know what to do, showed it to Dunaway, and she just read out loud the movie title she saw.

Wow.

LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL LLLLLLLLLLLLLL