Did not deserve best picture - Spotlight (2015) Discussion

[–] DonObi-WanGump 8 years ago

I agree.

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[–] lenadimitriou 8 years ago

I totally agree, comparing to Sleepers (1996) which was the same story but far more interesting.

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[–] monstermayhem32 8 years ago

Sleepers was a classic movie. Spotlight is not a bad film but best picture win not really.

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[–] patsfan12 8 years ago

Sleepers is amazing. The heavy-hitters it has on it's cast list is remarkable. I bought that dvd so long ago. Furthermore, Sleepers is a lot better than Spotlight, in pretty much every way.

"Not everything, not yet" - Christian Bale/Batman

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[–] Rolltide (964) 3 years ago

Sleepers was not the same story at all. This is a factual account of real investigative journalism that revealed systemic church abuse and protection of abusers.

Sleepers was about abuse in one facility that was used as justification for a murder.

I do not consider them related at all.

Spotlight is the best documentary style film ever made. I thought the film did well to just tell the damning story without too many cheap shots at the church. There are some there but they do not dominate the film.

This goes way beyond just left wing bias vs the church. No honest decent person can defend what the church did and as a former Catholic I can clearly say that no church can call themselves righteous that allowed systemic abuse of children for decades world wide. The current pope allowed abuse in Argentina as Cardinal and arch bishop there.

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[–] fabiovasconcllos 8 years ago

good joke

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[–] morris45 8 years ago

Please explain.

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[–] IHateJakeGyllenhaal 8 years ago

Agreed, but while I think The Revenant is much much better on a technical film making level, it was probably a safer choice for the academy. I've also heard complaints that The Revenant was unrealistic and overlong, so that probably stunted its chances of winning too.

*Duke

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[–] lds7701 8 years ago

Yep, complete bullcrap. Not good enough for any other Oscars but wins Best Picture? All politics

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[–] timmy9313 8 years ago

It won best original screenplay which is a pretty big one.

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[–] cowpig-108-185491 8 years ago

Argo won Best Picture but Ben Affleck didn't even get a nom for director.

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[–] ajc6412 8 years ago

I don't know if in ten years people look back and say it wasn't the right choice. On one hand the revenant is better and so was mad max. But on the other in ten years journalism will be completely dead and people will watch this movie and think wow people really did journalism and it could do justice.

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[–] tomholland2016 7 years ago

So how does anything you say relate to winning Best Picture?

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[–] entourage2223 8 years ago

its the typical safe academy pick, you should have known

All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain

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[–] 8 years ago

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[–] rascal67 8 years ago

A typical safe academy pick because the Academy always goes for movies critical of the Raping Children Church.
Like, uh ...
LOL.
The Revenant would have been the safe pick.
____________
Yes, I am laughing out loud, because you buy into the politics and pc bullcrap of the academy choosing a movie with a controversial theme, to prove how caring and compassionate they are. Now, if the film wasn't told from pov of the righteous media, who were researching to uncover and expose the scandal, and was told from the pov within the Catholic Diocese and played out like a dark thriller about the abuse and corruption from the priests pov, then that could have been considered a less safe and brave choice.

Exorcist: Christ's power compels you. Cast out, unclean spirit.
Destinata:💩

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[–] kennethdower 8 years ago

"a controversial theme"? So, you think a large proportion of people think child *beep* is fine and is O.K. to cover-up. Brilliant.

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[–] 8 years ago

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[–] SteveMoonlightAllaby 8 years ago

The Revenant was overlong and boring in parts with a weak storyline. Spotlight had an excellent screenplay a great ensemble giving fantastic performances. It is a very deserving winner.

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[–] letess 8 years ago

And yet The Big Short was better than Spotlight. Much better writing, better acting performances. Steve Carell was fantastic. The ensemble cast as a group worked well in Spotlight but there was no single fantastic great performance. I don't even recall any Boston accents except Keaton's who, by the way, was very good. I think Rachel was better in A Most Wanted Man than in this role. I kept thinking of the movie The Verdict in terms of the power of the Catholic church and All the President's Men in terms of journalism and getting to the truth. Spotlight just pales in comparison to these, but I think more people watched this movie of all the movies nominated. I think the content of The Spotlight was why this movie won and it appealed to the audiences and that there was vindication - kind of. Even State of Play - British one, which was a mini-series - was better than this.

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[–] spyretto 8 years ago

Screenplay and performances alone should not be enough to justify best picture, for a movie theater film more is required.

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[–] letess 8 years ago

Most definitely. That's why this is very TV. This is not a great movie but a popular movie. They had a choice to vote on a great movie and didn't. That great movie was a long time coming but as time goes by and in years to come, it will be in the Classics and people will go back and wonder what film at the 2016 Oscars beat out this great movie. And it's the same response as in similar cases, "Oh well, at the time.. "

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[–] DonutLover 8 years ago

that may be and that could have made a better movie. it still would have been given the oscar if it was about the catholic church in a bad light. if i was a director and i was making a great movie i would not release my movie if i knew that year a film depicting crimes in the catholic church was coming out. because that would be the obvious winner of the oscars due to the folks who run the academy awards. no objectivity there. i would wait until there was no movie about the church or islam.

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[–] letess 8 years ago

Making a movie about the Catholic church has nothing to do with getting an award. The Verdict was nominated and didn't win. And it is not an obvious winner topic. Spotlight unveiled truths as well and it was a better movie - just not about investigative reporting or priests as predators. This was a small movie that had a lot to say, a good cast, and was popular. Just not the best movie. I think Mystic River was a better movie about a child molested and it didn't win. Not about priests however. In that movie you get a real glance at what happens in Boston to a child who was molested and how his life played out. Very gritty and horrifying and with better Boston accents and better performances. I do like that it had a relatively small budget compared to the others - The Room probably the least costly - and that you get to watch something really dynamic with people talking and a good plot that was real and wasn't a remake of an earlier action movie or comic strip.

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[–] 8 years ago

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[–] letess 8 years ago

It seems like there should be a lot more movies then about the Catholic Church and not just in Boston. Other than that, history is plagued with the power and the horrors. I remember one of my favorite movies is a French one - Queen Margot (La Reine Margot) where Catherine de' Medici, a staunch Catholic, marries her daughter off to a Hugenot to appeal to the people and then slaughters all the protestants.

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[–] DonutLover 8 years ago

there are only so many i can watch. what one do you recommend i watch? this one or the room?

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[–] zangiku 8 years ago

sorry but i really do need to say that no more than one or two actors in this picture struck me as having authentic "boston" accents. certainly not michael keaton, puhleeze! all he learnt to do was drop the R in one word, "cardinal."

for authentic boston accents please see Black Mass, wherein every single person even the teensiest weensiest roles had a 100% consistent, pitch-perfect BA at every single moment of the film.

very sorry to disappoint you all but i grew up there, & also trained in speech therapy. the accents in this picture were phony, inconsistent & very vague at even the best of times of which there were not many.

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[–] eliuson 8 years ago

I agree to disagree. While I think it was overlong, I never thought it was boring nor do I think it´s storyline was weak. The trailers gave clear indications of what this movie was meant to be.

It was more about a man´s journey rather than the streaming of a storyline and that stood out to me because it went out of the way of conventional storytelling, besides,it was enhanced by it´s visual storytelling elements.

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[–] keshby3636 7 years ago

I agree. An important publication that really push the Catholic Church's cover up of pedophile priests into the open. I really liked Spotlight. Keaton, Ruffalo and Schreiber were very good. In regards to The Revenant, DiCaprio winning an Oscar was pretty funny being that he had few lines and just had to get from one mark to the other. Very overrated movie.

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[–] rjc-77635 8 years ago

I agree, BUT, I think The Big Short should've won, instead of The Revenant.

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[–] dini0519 8 years ago

Agree. The Big Short was better. So was Brooklyn and The Martian.

Dini

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[–] ColdestWinter 8 years ago

me too. I didn't hate The Revenant but TBS was just a better movie in my opinion.

~Memories made in the coldest winter~

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