[mjn.mixael]

the oscars is an arts award. not an acedemic award, so i kinda disagree with the thread title. its a movie ive yet to see, and the fact that it embellishes the facts, doesn't dissuade me from wanting to see it. if i wanted the facts id watch a documentary and not a movie, even then i would question those facts.

Indeed. Whenever some movie like this creates some sort of drama... I always expect it's some guy jumping on a popular item to push his own agenda, for better or worse. Like the Canadian Ex-Ambassador. I was reading his comments in an article, and all his complaints... then suddenly, "oh by the way, we are making a documentary that should be more accurate than Argo. You should see it." Right, ok. So, are you complaining because Argo was inaccurate or because it gets you press... or both?

I don't know the answer, but I typically just watch movies cause they are movies. They are written to be dramatic and entertaining long before they are written to be informative.

[Scourge of Ages]

Aye, unless it's a documentary, I generally expect films to be produced to be entertaining 1st, and accurate... probably 4th or 5th after a few other things.

[NGTM-1R]

Even as an arts award, I'm still not sure what they're talking about with Life of Pi.

[karajorma]

Here's the thing though, is there actually any reason why not ****ing over the Canadians would have made the movie less entertaining?

[An4ximandros]

 Cuz 'Murica wouln't save teh wurld from 'slamic Commee Natzis den! *Typing this post was a source of physical and mental pain.

 Basically the same reason all HMovies do that crap: If they show 'MURICA 'saving the world' the US military gives them access to military equipment for filming.

[General Battuta]

Cuz 'Murica wouln't save teh wurld from 'slamic Commee Natzis den! *Typing this post was a source of physical and mental pain.

 Basically the same reason all HMovies do that crap: If they show 'MURICA 'saving the world' the US military gives them access to military equipment for filming.

This is a pretty facile argument, Zero Dark Thirty had a load of military equipment and was profoundly anti-American.

[Black Wolf]

Cuz 'Murica wouln't save teh wurld from 'slamic Commee Natzis den! *Typing this post was a source of physical and mental pain.

 Basically the same reason all HMovies do that crap: If they show 'MURICA 'saving the world' the US military gives them access to military equipment for filming.

This is a pretty facile argument, Zero Dark Thirty had a load of military equipment and was profoundly anti-American.

And that's a rare outlier in the face of masses of data supporting the "**** Yeah!" hypothesis.

[General Battuta]

Cuz 'Murica wouln't save teh wurld from 'slamic Commee Natzis den! *Typing this post was a source of physical and mental pain.

 Basically the same reason all HMovies do that crap: If they show 'MURICA 'saving the world' the US military gives them access to military equipment for filming.

This is a pretty facile argument, Zero Dark Thirty had a load of military equipment and was profoundly anti-American.

And that's a rare outlier in the face of masses of data supporting the "**** Yeah!" hypothesis.

It is neither an outlier (a technical term from statistics which should not be misapplied) nor a data point in a mass of data. The fact that the United States military only wants to give support to movies that make it look good is perfectly true, but it doesn't have much to do with Argo, or why Argo is bad. It was just a cheap shot, played poorly.

e: I actually have no idea if ZDT got equipment straight from the military, my point is more that it is possible to make a movie that has both loads of military gear and something to say beyond Pentagon talking points

[NGTM-1R]

Besides, the argument is yet more facile in comparison to the likelihood of large military equipment being CGI'd instead.

[MP-Ryan]

What pisses me off most - more than the "America!  **** yeah!" phenomenon common to so many "historical" films, is the fact that in this case there are no less than THREE of the major, prominent players who were still alive and regularly talk about the 'Canadian Caper' who the screenwriter could have interviewed for minute details, including Ken Taylor (the Canadian Ambassador), Jimmy Carter (the US President, who publicly acknowledged Canada's role), and Tony Mendez, the CIA agent who wrote the book the screenplay is based on.

As Taylor said - the screenwriter didn't have a clue what he was talking about, despite the fact that the details are now public, unclassified knowledge and he had resources available to him to get the facts straight.  Apparently, the original screenplay from TIFF went to far as to include a postscript that directly implied Taylor should never have received any credit because it was all a CIA-contrived-and-executed-operation.  The backlash over that prompted Affleck to invite Taylor to help re-write those lines.

Ordinarily I expect some historical inaccuracy in film, but when the people involved are (mostly) still alive and this could have been easily fact-checked, and it does a total disservice to the people who actually risked their lives with their feet on the ground in Iran all for the sake of "rah rah 'MERICA!" I get more than a little pissed off.  I guess it's my Canadian complex coming through where - as usual, and despite having the information at their fingertips - a bunch of ignorant assholes in the US manage to ignore the contributions of their allies.

/rant.

[StarSlayer]

Come on MP it was done totally for Canada's benefit.  We only had maintaining your standing as least disliked nation at heart.  Seriously what's one more CIA Op going to do for our rep?  Everybody hates the US anyway.  On the other hand if the rest of the world were aware of the extent of your nation's skill at subterfuge it would only hurt your cred. 

[swashmebuckle]

I understand there is a great deal of confusion and anger surrounding this issue, but there is some very good news also. You see, whenever a foreigner reaches a certain threshold of greatness, they miraculously transform into an American! So don't fret, ugly ducklings of the world; if you only let your inner American shine, then maybe one day...

[bobbtmann]

I don't really care about the historical inaccuracies of Hollywood movies. Has soon as you start caring about what comes out of those studios, that's when your heart will break.

[General Battuta]

I don't really care about the historical inaccuracies of Hollywood movies. Has soon as you start caring about what comes out of those studios, that's when your heart will break.

Again, there are lots of movies that really do quite a good job at being smart and entertaining, and they even come from Hollywood!

[karajorma]

The point that if you get upset when they produce ****ty movies, you'll always be upset is nonetheless accurate.

[General Battuta]

There are better ways to approach Hollywood's ups and downs than default cynicism, though. A lot of very good criticism has been written about movies that seem superficially very bad. I've spoken up here because I think people are resorting to lazy cliches and stereotypes in understanding movies and how they're made.

To pick three examples from last summer's basket, Battleship and Prometheus (and Transformers 3 but I don't remember when that came out) all produced some excellent and at least partially redemptive readings. To the average moviegoer they're probably not worth the time of day, but anyone interested in more than passive entertainment can find a lot more to think about than 'oh Hollywood is not very good'. Conversely, a lot of the more depressingly bad material to come out of Hollywood recently wasn't looked at closely enough and got a free pass - the banal and slack Avengers is a good example.

I guess my point is that 'upset' and 'not upset' about '****ty' or 'not ****ty' is a pretty meaningless way to evaluate film. I guess I'd extend that to the whole culture of 'what do you expect, XYZ is always terrible/corrupt/a failure', whether you're talking about arts or politics or video games or the state of world events - it's a myopic, acontextual perspective and an easy out.

[Luis Dias]

You just said that Transformers 3 is a more interesting movie than Avengers.

/Thread

[Scourge of Ages]

Heh, Battleship. Man, that movie...
Despite the widespread and well-founded criticism, I did find a very interesting theme and message there. The problem with finding meaning in movies like that one with so many problems, is that you can't be sure if the meaning was put there intentionally or not.

[NGTM-1R]

You just said that Transformers 3 is a more interesting movie than Avengers.

Avengers is actually a pretty bad movie about letting the heroes be...well, heroes. It always felt it had to up the stakes and have them fall and come back again, and that got pretty formulaic and boring. Hell, the whole thing would have fallen apart but for a "stupid-ass decision".

Basically, in a movie about the Avengers, the Avengers did not win on their own merits.

That's kind of ****ed up.

[Luis Dias]

No one was speaking in absolute terms, but in relativistic. Battleship and Transformers better than Avengers.

Prometheus, I'll leave that one alone. It sure does have traces of there having been an attempt to create an interesting something, and if we behave more like scavengers (ah), then yeah, it does have a thousand times more stuff than Avengers to indulge and think about.

But that's an incorrect way of assessing things. It's like blaming Doom for a lack of narrative depth, and dismissing it because it has nothing interesting to say. And then say that Daikatana (for instance) had "excellent and at least partially redemptive readings". Well...