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apocalypsos) wrote2013-01-10 02:47 pm
apocalypsos) wrote2013-01-10 02:47 pm
Oscarwatch: The Impossible
No, I am seriously, seriously, SERIOUSLY pissed off at this movie.
Look, I don't even have to reiterate the reasons why it's an incredibly problematic movie, but I'm going to anyway:
-- It's a movie based on a true story about the Asian tsunami that focuses on a white family.
-- The actual family is Spanish. This family could not BE any whiter. Although if they wanted whiter people, they keep running into Scandinavians with speaking roles.
-- Apparently, the tsunami hardly hurt any Asians, just poor injured white people.
-- Oh, and the speaking roles go mostly to white people.
-- WHITE PEOPLE.
So basically I was already mad when I started the movie. And then I got even more pissed, because on several levels it's incredibly good.
Naomi Watts didn't get nominated for Best Actress because she was the whitest person in a racefaily mess. She *is* genuinely magnificent in the role. She and Ewan MacGregor both take the roles and run with them, and they do a very good job of getting you to cry without wringing the tears out of you. There's something irritating about setting a feel-good tearjerker during a disaster that's fresh in everyone's minds, but they do the best they can to overcome that. Also, the actor who plays the eldest son deserves special recognition.
The best part of the movie, though not in the most comfortable of ways, is the tsunami sequence. It's horrific. We can all remember watching video of what happened when it was happening, and the sequence is just ... it's the tsunami. It might as well BE footage of the tsunami (well, except for the part that you don't see ANY non-white people during the entire sequence, or hear anyone yelling in Thai or any other Southeastern Asian languages). I sobbed the entire time, because they really focus on Naomi Watts and her son, and so you don't see anyone else at all as they're swept away, so you spend the entire time imagining the hundreds of thousands of people under that water. They make the decision to focus on these two characters and give you an panoramic shot of the floodwaters that I cannot for the life of me figure out how they filmed, and it's terrifying.
And they wasted it on this racefaily piece of shit.
I ... I can't, you guys. I seriously can't. Judging it purely on Naomi Watts, her performance is wonderful and I'm not the least bit surprised she was nominated. The problem is that the Academy members are going to get these screeners in the mail and watch the movie and even though the Academy isn't known for being the sharpest tacks when it comes to racefail, they'd have to be morons not to notice just how fucking uncomfortable this movie is to watch on a racial, social, and ethnocentric level. It's a technically well-acted, well-directed, well-made movie ruined by someone's awful decision that the Southeast Asians and Spanish family weren't camera-ready.
Look, I don't even have to reiterate the reasons why it's an incredibly problematic movie, but I'm going to anyway:
-- It's a movie based on a true story about the Asian tsunami that focuses on a white family.
-- The actual family is Spanish. This family could not BE any whiter. Although if they wanted whiter people, they keep running into Scandinavians with speaking roles.
-- Apparently, the tsunami hardly hurt any Asians, just poor injured white people.
-- Oh, and the speaking roles go mostly to white people.
-- WHITE PEOPLE.
So basically I was already mad when I started the movie. And then I got even more pissed, because on several levels it's incredibly good.
Naomi Watts didn't get nominated for Best Actress because she was the whitest person in a racefaily mess. She *is* genuinely magnificent in the role. She and Ewan MacGregor both take the roles and run with them, and they do a very good job of getting you to cry without wringing the tears out of you. There's something irritating about setting a feel-good tearjerker during a disaster that's fresh in everyone's minds, but they do the best they can to overcome that. Also, the actor who plays the eldest son deserves special recognition.
The best part of the movie, though not in the most comfortable of ways, is the tsunami sequence. It's horrific. We can all remember watching video of what happened when it was happening, and the sequence is just ... it's the tsunami. It might as well BE footage of the tsunami (well, except for the part that you don't see ANY non-white people during the entire sequence, or hear anyone yelling in Thai or any other Southeastern Asian languages). I sobbed the entire time, because they really focus on Naomi Watts and her son, and so you don't see anyone else at all as they're swept away, so you spend the entire time imagining the hundreds of thousands of people under that water. They make the decision to focus on these two characters and give you an panoramic shot of the floodwaters that I cannot for the life of me figure out how they filmed, and it's terrifying.
And they wasted it on this racefaily piece of shit.
I ... I can't, you guys. I seriously can't. Judging it purely on Naomi Watts, her performance is wonderful and I'm not the least bit surprised she was nominated. The problem is that the Academy members are going to get these screeners in the mail and watch the movie and even though the Academy isn't known for being the sharpest tacks when it comes to racefail, they'd have to be morons not to notice just how fucking uncomfortable this movie is to watch on a racial, social, and ethnocentric level. It's a technically well-acted, well-directed, well-made movie ruined by someone's awful decision that the Southeast Asians and Spanish family weren't camera-ready.
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