I think this movie is brilliant! It can be a little difficult to watch at times and shows a side of Los Angeles that I can't even imagine (I'm a LA Native). I absolutely think that it should get Oscar nominations for the director Sean Baker and the lead Kitana Kiki Rodriguez. The writing is also exceptional and should be considered as should Mya Taylor in a supporting role. Anyone agree?
shareCertainly doesn't deserve best actor nominations.
shareThis movie is just plain sad. Transgender people on IMDB seem to love it yet it is nothing more than a caricature of what normal people think of transgender people.
What's a lollipop man doing knowing fu*king karate?
I'm not trans but I loved the movie because of its Cassavetes - like tone. Yes, the characters start out larger than life and almost "stereotypical", but by the end, you see them as actual people just trying to survive a world that has it out for them due to their gender and race and their "hustle" is an act to keep their dream and spirits up. Personally, I think Mya Taylor should have been nominated over Kate Winslet and Rachel McAdams this year; I also think she could transcend Laverne Cox's status as a modern icon, but that's just me.
share"Cassavetes-like tone"? You don't know your Cassavetes very well. The only thing this film has in common with Cassavetes is its thoroughly independent spirit. This is much more along the lines of early John Waters and Paul Morrissey films.
shareTangerine has received a slew of Independent Spirit Awards which it completely deserves. However, your knowledge of filmmaking must be pretty limited if you think this is somehow an "Oscar-worthy" film.
It is groundbreaking, for sure, for its technical merit and, of course, a lot could be said of writer/director Sean Baker utilising that technical milestone to deliver something as edgy as this but Oscars? The Oscars are a huge, global platform for generating money for the film industry via established tastemakers defining "excellence" for the year's films, most of which are still in the market and can benefit financially from that kind of positioning. Even if it were Oscar-worthy, neither AMPAS or Tangerine would stand to benefit from that kind of attention.
It's great that Tangerine was, however fleetingly, in the mix but I'm surprised Scott Feinberg of THR placed it for contention as a possible Best Supporting Actress nominee. The idea that anyone involved in Tangerine was somehow "robbed" of an Oscar is completely ludicrous.
I suspect most of those supporting this #OscarSoWhite campaign on social media are likely SJWs and millenials with little knowledge of what has come before them and no respect for the skills that professionals in the film industry really possess.
To my mind, considering the context of new distribution platforms, there were no egregious omissions in the year's nominees. Turning the Oscars into an affirmative action exercise will only hasten the already creeping demise of that institution. If anything, rather than having 10 nominees in each category they should just create new categories for "Best Performance by a Minority Actor," etc., be more honest about it. Either way, expansion or quotas just dilutes the whole idea of excellence and the actual interest in progressing from longlist to shortlist to winner on the night. The whole awards season is about promoting the industry. People seem to have lost sight of that and creating these deep divides will do nothing for minorities in the film industry.
If anything, rather than having 10 nominees in each category they should just create new categories for "Best Performance by a Minority Actor," etc., be more honest about it.
I suspect most of those supporting this #OscarSoWhite campaign on social media are likely SJWs and millennials with little knowledge of what has come before them and no respect for the skills that professionals in the film industry really possess.
The whole awards season is about promoting the industry.
Um, what? You're advocating segregation in the Academy Awards? In 2016?
Oscar nomination it... is temporal, political, and frankly, makes a mockery of excellence.
The Oscars claim to recognize cinematic achievement in cinema. Categories like "Best Picture," "Best Director," and "Best Lead Actress"
That's what the Academy Awards have turned into: shameless, bombastic self-promotion.
and pays no attention to the legitimacy, honor, creativity, and innovation that built the reputation and renown of the Oscars in the first place.
Yours is a pretty annoying, idealistic post that completely romanticises the entire purpose of the Oscars. The Academy Awards were created in 1929 to promote the film industry. That goal has not changed. The media starts spilling ink on this event, well...when do they stop? But usually awards season starts in earnest around August but like Christmas, each year it gets earlier. Starting that dialogue, continuing that conversation is all promotion. There are no losers. If your film is a part of that dialogue, you win and eventually, maybe next year, the year after, you might even win one and really benefit from an elevated profile in the industry and promotion in the mainstream. It is not a coronation. It's just an awards show.
Tangerine and Mya Taylor had nothing to benefit from in terms of getting an Oscar nomination. It is unlikely the film would have expanded to enough screens to take advantage of that platform; it is highly unlikely that should a mainstream audience have been drawn to this film on the basis of an Oscar nomination that they would think it was worthy of such attention. Which scene do you think mainstream audiences would've enjoyed most, the one where Ms. Taylor receives a blow job or the one where she cups the non-paying trick's scrotum while he masturbates? I know, you think I'm being judgemental, it's easy to mistake pragmatism for judgement. In turn, those audiences would've lowered their opinion of the awards body that made them think this was a film for them. Neither party would benefit - and I wasn't even referring to a financial element. Tangerine is a film that audiences are much better off choosing for themselves rather than having it held up as a "must see" standard of excellence. When you're older maybe you'll understand. Maybe not.
it is highly unlikely that should a mainstream audience have been drawn to this film on the basis of an Oscar nomination that they would think it was worthy of such attention. Which scene do you think mainstream audiences would've enjoyed most, the one where Ms. Taylor receives a blow job or the one where she cups the non-paying trick's scrotum while he masturbates?Mmhmm. And what scenes do you think audiences liked best in A Clockwork Orange? The scene where a rival gang strips a woman naked and are about rape her? Or the one where Alex and his gang cripples a man and strips his wife completely naked and actually do rape her in front of him? Or the scene where Alex kills a woman with a giant penis statue?
Oh so now we're elevating this to the level of Stanley Kubrick and Anthony Burgess? That seems like quite a leap.
Midnight Cowboy - another film whose artistry towers over Tangerine (a small, thoroughly independent film which I greatly enjoyed, for the record) - was a huge critical and box office hit that found its audience way before the Academy smiled upon it. It captured a cultural zeitgeist that was years in the making (and likely did owe something to the subversive work of Paul Morrissey). It's stature in the cultural terrain was such that the Academy could not ignore it, even if, on the night, the two midnight cowboys were passed over in favour of a sentimental win for the legendary screen cowboy, John Wayne.
The Exorcist, as if anyone needs reminding, was a film about faith challenged by demonic possession. Audiences were meant to be shocked; they empathised with the little girl but certainly not the devil. This film was an almost unparalleled phenomenon, on par with Jaws, and ran in cinemas for years in the '70s.
Platoon was one of a string of films about the Vietnam war, a subject that remained of huge interest to filmmakers and audiences alike throughout the late '70s and the whole of the '80s, as the country still wrestled with the scars of a conflict that effected every American who lived through it.
It's hard to fathom what, in your mind, these films have to do with Tangerine, a micro-budget film of limited appeal that most people have never heard of about the hard scrabble existence of two trans women on Christmas Eve or why you think its appeal is on par with some of the biggest most culturally impactful films ever made. Again, pragmatism is not judgement. Ms. Taylor won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actress which is exactly what she deserved. To pretend this film has some kind of wide mainstream appeal is to lack an understanding of what that is. This film will be a cult favourite for years to come, deservedly so. It is not Saving Private Ryan. Not sure why that should upset you so. But a sense of perspective and a grasp of a specific context other than outrage at perceived social injustice is what you seem to lack.
Well said....but all movies released in the time frame are eligible for Oscar contention!! The movie feels so real that u assume their not even acting...and as appose to some nominations every year(Rachael McAdams...Really??).....at least a screenplay nod would have been nice..but other directors and film makers love this film! This and Cop Car are my 2 faves I have seen in the last year..(Dear White People and 'Dope' are great too)!! Art is art and rather we like it or agree with it, as time goes on...if the product is good...it will stand on it's own as good of bad film making...
shareI saw it at the theater. That's how much I like Sean Baker. Great movie. I've been over with awards season for a long time. There was a lot of buzz around this movie but, you know...I make sure I see a tone of movies every year just to see what nonsense is being pushed come awards season.
It's ok to like more than one actor. :))
Tangerine might pick up a couple of Indie Spirit Awards, given it has four major nominations.
shareThe notion that this deserves any Oscar nominations is insane. I don't think it deserves any of the Independent Spirit nominations it got.
shareWe obviously have different opinions. Still, was it really necessary to call me "insane"? This is supposed to be a fun forum to discuss opinions. What are your top pics for best picture (of the nominations)? I'd say Room or Bridge of Spies but lots of good choices.
shareMy idea of a fun exchange is to drop the term "insane"....because that's what I definitely think of any notion of Oscar noms for "Tangerine".
My favorite films of the past year were "Room", "Mad Max: Fury Road", "Inside Out", and "It Follows." But then I didn't see everything....just a lot of it.
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