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[Foggy]

The real joy is in the comments section

Iñárritu should be careful how much he beats the 'slog' drum, considering most of his filmography. Jesus Christ, he's like if Kylo Ren was a huge Malick fan.

BMD's comment section as a whole is a strange wilderness

 

[master0fdeception]

I agree that Leo has done better acting before, but I thought this movie was very well made. I have never seen a bear scene like that and I had to look away a few times. It's a dark movie and a little slow at times, the flashbacks could have been better but overall I was very impressed with the way this movie was made and I didn't really know there was a backlash. Highly recommend this....experience.

 

[Anton Sugar]

EDIT: Just saw Y2Kev's post.

 

[Michael F. Assbender]

You have arguably the greatest male lead available today

Sorry, but no. Leo is fine, but massively overrated. Most times, including this movie, he's just Leo playing Leo. I honestly can't recall ever seeing a movie of his where I felt he lost himself in the role. He's always extremely aware of the camera, and all too willing to gleefully mug to it instead of letting go and falling into the part like the best actors do. Daniel Day-Lewis as a perfect example of how an amazing actor can become who they're portraying. Hell, in Gangs of New York, he acted circles around Leo, and that wasn't anywhere near Lewis' best performance.

 

[Error]

I'm always impressed at Faraci loyal followers in his site. Specially whenever I glance at the comment section. Not anyone criticizes him or calls him out in an article, it's like a hive mind. Obviously it's his site, and that is expected, but not everything the man writes should be taken as gospel which is what I get from the comments section of his site.

Also I can't get over the site's new name. Birth.Movies.Death. lol

 

[gatti-man]

If Leo wins an Oscar for the revanent that's fine by me. I felt like his performance was flawless. The movie was full of flaws but none were Leo's. The movie has amazing parts and terrible parts. It's over long and self indulgent but I'm glad I watched it.

 

[BigTastyBurger666]

Devin Faraci is human trash.

What this guy said. Faraci really is a spiteful, hateful thing.

I really enjoyed the movie, not least for the performances, but also for the beautiful cinematography.

 

[Knox]

I saw this movie without reading anything about it's production, so I didn't know the bison liver was real or whatever else was a "real" stunt. I still thought it was a great movie and thought Leo was great in it.

 

[Blader]

I don't really understand where you took that from in my post. I completely agree that part of the appeal of Mad Max and Revenant is the process, but when comparing those twoo movies, Mad Max has a simple plot without clutter, and Revenant is overly long, especially during the middle.

Seriously, Revenant is amazing in every facet except its script.

I don't disagree with your assessment of either movie, I just don't think subjective takes on the quality of either is kind of the point (especially since both have been widely acclaimed, even if the consensus on Mad Max is somewhat higher). A lot of Mad Max's hype, before and after its release, was owed to doing it practically, and I don't see why that should be held in Mad Max's favor but also used against The Revenant. E.g. "Leo ate real bison liver? Who cares!" vs. "Holy shit, that guy is really playing guitar blind-folded on top of that rig!"

 

[DeathoftheEndless]

He's right that a performance should be mostly judged on its own, but I don't see any harm in factoring in what went into it (unless you really care about awards).

 

[Dominator]

No more attacks on the writer, please.

Just in case people missed this on the bottom of the last page.

 

[pixelish]

He's right that a performance should be mostly judged on its own, but I don't see any harm in factoring in what went into it (unless you really care about awards).

actually that's the reason why i created this thread. i saw a few posters in the golden globe thread being upset and probably confused that the revenant won a few awards.

anyway, a lot of the posters here have mistaken the main point of this article. it's not saying the revenant should be deemed a bad film because of the production process. what i'm trying to emphasise with this article is how the studio is 'framing' the difficult production process as a push for the revenant's awards glory by adding an artificial component in judging the quality of a film. so i hope with this article people will realise there are other things that have to be taken into account besides the subjective quality of the movie itself when they wonder why movie x wins this award instead of movie z this coming oscars.

also, could we please stop talking about the author? i already mentioned his opinion is not a unique one among film journalists.

 

[Count Dookkake]

It's kinda like how I don't care if something is based on a true story or about some historical struggle or triumph of the human spirit or whatever shit hucksters try to sell you as important.

That said, The Revenant was pretty sweet.

 

[SlimySnake]

I agree with pretty much everything he said.

Leo and all the other method actors need to take a step back and realize that no one cares if they ate a raw bison liver. It makes no sense. There is fire right there. He had just eaten a fish just that evening. There is no way he was so hungry that he couldnt wait a few minutes to cook that bison liver. And yes, Hugh Glass wouldn't have puked.

Also, these one shot takes are starting to pull me out of the movie. Same with the long shots of the wilderness that are there just so the cinematographer can win an oscar. I admire them as a graphics whore but let's be honest here, they take away from the movie. The funny thing is that this movie's story was simpler than Avatar and yet no one cares about story all of a sudden.

Full disclosure. I love Leo and he deserves to win many Oscars but not because he swam in cold water, ate a bison liver or slept inside a dead horse. If that is what wins you Oscars then let's give Keanu Reeves an Oscar for doing all Kung Fu stunts himself. Let's give Tom Cruise oscars for all Mission Impossible stunts.

 

[Rixxan]

Sorry he paid too much attention to marketing.

The movie is phenomenal

 

[TheRagnCajun]

I think we have approached the point where it is impossible to look at this movie and Leo's performance for what it is. Everyone is interpeting it from an awards perspective because of who's involved and the time of year. I think that's a shame.

 

[Parch]

I really liked it. It's a really good performance by Leo and a perfect role for his over-acting style.

I do think the movie is getting overhyped though. There were scenes that I thought were unnecessarily long just to let Leo be dramatic. And there were lengthy one-shot scenes that failed to hide that they were so obviously staged. I left thinking that this movie was some serious oscar bait, and now that it's had success at the Golden Globes I'm thinking it's getting a lot more praise than it really should.

It's still a good movie. It has to be considered one of the best "survival" movies ever made. If conditions helped to make it that way then that's great, but the directing and acting isn't as great as it's being hyped to be. Pushing the hype that it was difficult filming conditions doesn't make it a great either. It's definitely worth the watch, but making films that are obvious oscar bait is starting to get annoying.

 

[Blader]

Full disclosure. I love Leo and he deserves to win many Oscars but not because he swam in cold water, ate a bison liver or slept inside a dead horse. If that is what wins you Oscars then let's give Keanu Reeves an Oscar for doing all Kung Fu stunts himself. Let's give Tom Cruise oscars for all Mission Impossible stunts.

Do you think Tom Cruise's performances in Mission Impossible or Keanu Reeves in anything are comparable to Leo in this movie?

Swimming in cold water and eating bison liver doesn't get you recognition. But swimming in cold water and eating bison liver to help inform a great performance can as long as the "great performance" part holds up. It's why Ashton Kutcher didn't win any Oscars for playing Steve Jobs despite putting himself to the hospital from eating only fruit for a month.

 

[ogbg]

Sorry, but no. Leo is fine, but massively overrated. Most times, including this movie, he's just Leo playing Leo. I honestly can't recall ever seeing a movie of his where I felt he lost himself in the role. He's always extremely aware of the camera, and all too willing to gleefully mug to it instead of letting go and falling into the part like the best actors do. Daniel Day-Lewis as a perfect example of how an amazing actor can become who they're portraying. Hell, in Gangs of New York, he acted circles around Leo, and that wasn't anywhere near Lewis' best performance.

Aviator?

 

[shortsFortallPeople]

I think we have approached the point where it is impossible to look at this movie and Leo's performance for what it is. Everyone is interpeting it from an awards perspective because of who's involved and the time of year. I think that's a shame.

well, it's also coming off as Leo trying desperately to get an oscar so everyone is going at lengths at how terrible this production was and how tortured this shoot was to help sell his shot at the award.

Personally, i think worst actors have earned it during leo's career so his getting snubbed is something akin to Scorcese not getting the award for decades after putting out classic film after classic film over time. He's basically due his this-isnt-a-lifetime-achievement-oscar-but-it-really-is and if he doesn't get it after all the publicity surrounding him basically getting himself destroyed then i dont see him chasing the award anymore.

if the folks behind the film didn't want it to be the hot topic of award season then releasing it during award season sure seems like a dumb thing to do, right?

 

[plasmawave]

No because it was actually a good movie.

Both films had weak plots, and both were fantastically filmed, but Revenant seemed just a bit too long, especially in the middle where nothing is really happening or adding to the story. Mad Max was tightly scripted with a singular goal of getting from point A to point B and it worked. Revenant tried to combine your average revenge flick with a Survivorman episode and I felt like it did not mesh well at all.

I mean I don't know why we're comparing the two films but there ya go.

The Revenant is not a good film?

And your argument still doesn't explain why one is celebrated more than the other.

 

[Dictator93]

How??

I think a number of his roles can be boiled down to an accent or cadence of speech and when things get emotional, he yells. And I think this outburst is often mistaken for some sort of characting complexity or something.

I see an extremely limited range as a result, and one that does not always convince me unless it is a type cast role or something. A great example of this I think is in the Departed or Django where the character is an accent that also happens to yell when he is upset or nervous.

 

[JTripper]

The Inarritu hate I've been seeing online this past week has been utterly ridiculous. Sometimes I just can't take critics or people seriously when they look at things in such cynical ways.

It seems like Innaritu and the film are not to blame here. Everyone's making a big deal about it because that's what they read and heard, but I guarantee Inarritu didn't want to make this movie so people will talk about its production without having a single care about the content or artistry of the film itself, because that's what a lot of this seems like. People are hating on Inarritu, Leo, etc. just because its reception might seem overblown to them and the movie wasn't as mind blowing as the level of press it received.

 

[Crossing Eden]

I think a number of his roles can be boiled down to an accent or cadence of speech and when things get emotional, he yells. And I think this outburst is often mistaken for some sort of characting complexity or something.

I see an extremely limited range as a result, and one that does not always convince me unless it is a type cast role or something. A great example of this I think is in the Departed or Django where the character is an accent that also happens to yell when he is upset or nervous.

I really can't understand this because it misses so many nuances that he puts into his roles. He's so good at stealing scenes that I can't imagine sitting there and focusing solely on the fact that he has an accent.

 

[Socreges]

Just watched the movie for the first time. Wondered what GAF thought. Came across this thread and article...

The entire thing reads as if someone drew a conclusion, perhaps inspired by annoyance over the film's hype, and then sought out reasons to support it. e.g.,

The reality is that it doesn't. If anything it kind of sinks the movie for me; when you watch Apocalypse Now the absolute swirling madness of that production is there onscreen, in the performances, in the atmosphere. But it's a movie about madness, so it all works.

What is he even talking about? The Revenant was about (among other things) suffering, about using every remaining ounce of energy to push on despite insurmountable odds. So how is his comparison to Apocalypse Now not an argument FOR The Revenant.

Honestly I had forgotten about the shooting conditions before watching and didn't know about any supposed backlash. I wasn't even excited about the movie as I'd tried to get into it a year ago and failed. This time I got sucked in after a bit and was engrossed. The realism of the shooting only helped with the immersion. I wasn't thinking about DiCaprio and his performance. It just worked. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

 

[The Culture Vulture]

Dat bump.

You can always visit the Movies You've Seen Recently thread.

 

[| Praxis |]

Bump was worth it. Didn't read this at the time and agree, the author sounds like a knob.

 

[Skinpop]

dicaprio has never been able to convince me in any of his performances.