YapCap! March 3

Oscars Recap:

I knew this year’s Oscars were not going to be for me when Challengers, arguably the best movie of last year, was snubbed entirely.

The Oscars last night were filled with the usual, jokes about cutting people off, someone not being able to read the teleprompter (love you Goldie), beautiful fashion, many triumphs, and many many losses. One of the biggest is Emilia Perez losing in tons of its nominated categories, even though Zoe Saldaña did still take home the best-supporting actress. The biggest loss for me was Timothee Chalamet losing out best actor to Adrian Brody. While it pains me as I wasn’t the biggest fan of The Brutalist, it hurts mostly because Timothee deserved it so much. The comparison to being the next Leo hurts even more when you realize it’s also because he will be a long-time loser in these types of award shows.

But, just like Leo, who won eventually, Timothee already has a wide range of movies that showcase his incredible acting range. He will have more opportunities to ass to his impressive portfolio. I hope it also doesn’t take 20-something years to finally snag his award but I cannot wait to see what is still yet to come for the young actor.

Anora and Mikey Madison also took home some of the night's biggest awards. While I was POPE NATION (Conclave stan), it was pretty obvious that Anora was destined to sweep from the beginning, as it has already been sweeping all award season.

That being said, lowkey so happy award season is now over.

Currently Watching: All the Oscar-nominated films.

Can We Move Past 3-Hour Movies?

When trying to finish up some of the movies on my Oscars list, I strategized on what to watch first. Should I watch the longer movies first to get those out of the way or watch the shorts (docs, live-action, and animated) as well as the shorter films to build up stamina? Either way, I had the same reoccurring thought of, “Can we get over our fascination with 3-hour movies!”

I don’t mean only drama movies, I’m also tired of superhero movies being 3 or more hours. At that point, please turn it into a limited series. My soul and bladder are begging.

Not that I hate every 3-hour movie I’ve watched. In most recent years, Killers of the Flower Moon and Oppenheimer have been ones that I’ve enjoyed and felt that all that was in the movie was actually necessary to the plot, and felt like a well-paced movie. Others, some that even hit only the 2-hour mark, have tons of stuff that easily could’ve been left on the cutting room floor. I say let’s bring back the classic 90-minute feature.

Currently Listening to: Fontaines DC

Brutesmania

Trigger Warning: Mentions of SA

Spoiler Warning for The Brutalist

As I said, I’ve been watching a ton of Oscar flicks to get ready for the show on Sunday and I found myself confronted with The Brutalist. Like so many others I was excited about the new A24 flick and the fact that for the first time in 45 years, this movie was shot in VistaVision. (It’s a camera that has since been retired as it’s costly and kinda difficult to shoot on but by golly, it does look remarkable on screen.) Either way, after this a bunch of stuff about Adrian Brody resurfaced (his SNL stunt, forcing himself upon Halle Berry and using AI to improve his accent for the film). I lost interest in watching this film.

Despite my better judgment, I figured I might as well since it will probably win a lot on Sunday and I want to know why (fix this post-Sunday). But, why does it do what most men-written movies do which is include sexual assault?

I understand that it happens in life, but why do predominately male writers always feel the need to include it? It’s always this weird way to explicitly show that men are awful or power hungry, etc., when the actions can always show this. It’s this type of brutes-like mindset that is so frustrating to see. Especially since movies will only really use it to show you something “crazy” and will just move on from it afterward. WHY DID WE NEED TO EXPERIENCE THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE?