Post by joekiddlouischama on Feb 3, 2019 7:07:50 GMT
I started a thread on Mary Queen of Scots last month:
link
I have since viewed the film twice more in the theater, and my assessment and feelings are essentially the same. After three viewings, though, I believe that the movie's main flaw pertains less to the narrative and more to the supporting male characters. They needed more development, and without that cultivation, Mary Queen of Scots is a tad imbalanced.
Still, it is one of the better releases from 2018—as I noted in that thread, I consider the movie "good/very good." Although it is very different in tone and ambition, I deem Mary Queen of Scots to be just as strong of a film as The Favourite, rendering the discrepancy in Oscar nominations (zero for the former, ten for the latter) to be perplexing. As I have noted before, I would rank these two movies as the year's two best visually, with Mary Queen of Scots being the best in terms of composition and The Favourite being the best with regard to lighting. Both films are visually exceptional in both regards, but the painterly compositions of Mary are truly remarkable. How A Star Is Born, which offers very little in the way of composition, received a Best Cinematography nomination instead of this film is absurd. Indeed, aside from some nice nighttime shots early in the film and some effective on-stage shots during the concert scenes, A Star Is Born is largely unremarkable visually, and in any event, it definitely does not compare to Mary Queen of Scots. Likewise, Saoirese Ronan's powerful and somewhat ambiguous turn as Mary deserved an Academy Award nomination—she proved better in this film than in Brooklyn and Lady Bird, movies for which she did receive nominations. Nominating Lady Gaga from A Star Is Born instead of Ronan is also ridiculous in my view—Gaga is very good and quite naturalistic in her film, and of course she sings the part as well as it could be sung, but Ronan's role as Mary is much more challenging from an acting perspective. Mary Queen of Scots also probably deserved nominations for Best Editing, Best Sound Editing, and Best Sound Mixing.
But the Oscars constitute a slipshod form of assessing movies.
link
I have since viewed the film twice more in the theater, and my assessment and feelings are essentially the same. After three viewings, though, I believe that the movie's main flaw pertains less to the narrative and more to the supporting male characters. They needed more development, and without that cultivation, Mary Queen of Scots is a tad imbalanced.
Still, it is one of the better releases from 2018—as I noted in that thread, I consider the movie "good/very good." Although it is very different in tone and ambition, I deem Mary Queen of Scots to be just as strong of a film as The Favourite, rendering the discrepancy in Oscar nominations (zero for the former, ten for the latter) to be perplexing. As I have noted before, I would rank these two movies as the year's two best visually, with Mary Queen of Scots being the best in terms of composition and The Favourite being the best with regard to lighting. Both films are visually exceptional in both regards, but the painterly compositions of Mary are truly remarkable. How A Star Is Born, which offers very little in the way of composition, received a Best Cinematography nomination instead of this film is absurd. Indeed, aside from some nice nighttime shots early in the film and some effective on-stage shots during the concert scenes, A Star Is Born is largely unremarkable visually, and in any event, it definitely does not compare to Mary Queen of Scots. Likewise, Saoirese Ronan's powerful and somewhat ambiguous turn as Mary deserved an Academy Award nomination—she proved better in this film than in Brooklyn and Lady Bird, movies for which she did receive nominations. Nominating Lady Gaga from A Star Is Born instead of Ronan is also ridiculous in my view—Gaga is very good and quite naturalistic in her film, and of course she sings the part as well as it could be sung, but Ronan's role as Mary is much more challenging from an acting perspective. Mary Queen of Scots also probably deserved nominations for Best Editing, Best Sound Editing, and Best Sound Mixing.
But the Oscars constitute a slipshod form of assessing movies.