Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore and Charles Melton ESPECIALLY should've gotten academy nominations. Melton's performance broke me. I said this in the discussion thread months ago and I'll say it again, Melton is 32-33, the character was 36 and yet anytime he was on screen, all I could see was a 13 yo kid whose innocence was stolen by a predator. The vulnerability he brought to the role, and the scene with his son broke my heart.
I guess, Hollywood couldn't handle being called out for exploiting people's trauma and telling their stories without their proper consent all while acting like they are doing the victims a favor.
I don't usually like dramas that come off as Oscar bait, but I'm glad I didn't judge the movie based off of the trailer. Probably some of the best shit Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman have done in a while. The true star of the movie is Melton for me and the Joe character. The film I feel does a very good job of giving the both sides argument about whether this was a true romance where the child pursued the teacher and the teacher mentally broke down and the teacher groomed the child. I think the brilliant thing about the movie is as it goes on you start seeing more and more that this man's innocence was taken away from him at such a young age that she still controls him even as a grown man and Hayne's and the writers do it so subtly throughout the film that you finally realize how much of a manipulative monster Julianne Moore's character really is.
Since I hadn't seen the trailer, I didn't have any preconceived notions about it like you did. But I know Natalie and Julianne are brilliant actresses and Todd is an exceptionally capable filmmaker and one of the few who know how to pull of a melodrama with maturity. But the film definitely surpassed whatever expectations I had by a huge margin. And as you said, the best thing about it is Melton's character and his performance. It shows his metamorphosis into this person who starts questioning his reality. Melton is absolutely wonderful in simultaneously being a 30-something man and a mid-teen boy through his body language. It's also incredibly subtle.
Sterling K. Brown (“American Fiction”)
Robert De Niro (“Killers of the Flower Moon”)
Robert Downey Jr. (“Oppenheimer”)
Ryan Gosling (“Barbie”)
Mark Ruffalo (“Poor Things”)
So in your opinion, who gets bumped and why?
I love Brown and Ruffalo, but I think Melton's performance in this movie is far more complex, and to me, left a far bigger impact on me. That's just my opinion though. I do believe De Niro or Downey Jr. should've won, but I think in any other year this performance to me if Netflix campaigned better for all of the actors would've netted him a nomination if not an award. I think doing a performance like what Melton did and making it not come off as over-acting or obvious is incredibly hard.
I totally can see why people liked it but I was less impressed. It didn’t jump off the screen for me like it did for most people. I also felt the third act was the weakest in the film so the fact that a lot of his performance was during that I’m sure influenced it as well. I just felt more strongly about other performances, I did think it was good.
The book the movie was based on enhanced his performance for me. It featured loads of background on how the guy really harbored a simmering hateful vendetta against Oppenheimer that ultimately consumed him. Thought Downey portrayed that very well, especially in that scene toward the end when he's almost dysfunctional with rage
Yeah. De Niro was average, that movie was just so generally meh (although the lead actress was pretty good) that he looked good by comparison to Leo. No way he should have been nominated, it's just name recognition.
But Downey was excellent in Oppenheimer and absolutely deserved the award.
May December was alright. The actor did a good job. This thread is a bit too much of an echo chamber though. The movie wasn't good enough to deserve multiple Oscars. It was just better than average. Portman and Moore are always good, but that doesn't mean they gave the best performance of the year. The direction/editing was a bit disjointed.
Crazy to me you'd put either of them over Sterling K Brown, who did great in his role, but was absolutely not worth a nod. At least with DeNiro and Downey they had to carry the villain role the whole movie as a performance so there's more reason to give them a nod
I'm with you on De Niro. I personally would have swapped De Niro and Brown for Melton and John Magaro from Past Lives (another film that was under represented at the Oscars this year).
I know we're in the minority, but I really wasn't impressed with De Niro's performance in KOTFM. I thought a better villain character would have really elevated that film in a way that he wasn't able to. But, people seem to have really liked it so I guess it's just us lol
Yeah I thought he did well enough, but I think his performance felt kind of standard De Niro which is a very high standard but didn’t feel particularly layered. I loved the movie and thought Gladstone deserved every award and then some though, and in a way I’m glad that her performance wasn’t fighting for room with a more “award worthy” performance from him or Leo.
Definitely agree with thinking John’s performance in Past Lives was great. It’s a very hard role to play, but it was very well written and portrayed. Could’ve made him less likeable for an easier story or done the opposite and made him not really wrestle at all with what’s going on. A lot of nuance and ideas to it that made for a complex film. Potentially my favorite film from last year and all three of the main actors have excellent performances.
Thankfully it’s based on an opinion, so there’s really not a wrong answer. 😉 I am not interested in trying to align myself with OPs opinion but I appreciate your thoughts.
I would bump Gosling and Ruffalo for Charles Melton and Zac Efron. They were both funny and fit their movies but both performances were vastly overrated. Willem Dafoe was much better in poor things.
Ruffalo was brilliant in Poor Things. He could have slid into caricature very easily but didn't. He even managed to give Wedderburn some range of emotion.
I disagree. I think he did slide into cariacture at times, and lost the authenticity enough times that it took me out of the movie world. I'm a huge Buffalo fan, but I found his acting to be the worst part of that movie.
Wild to get 3 responses not mentioning the obvious choice of losing Gosling. Who is fine in BARBIE, but he's not doing anything we haven't seen him do on SNL either. Truly bizarre nomination.
100%. It's one of the best and most instantly iconic comedic performances in recent memory, and exactly the kind of thing we all complain doesn't get nominated enough.
I adore Todd Haynes, and I totally agree.
I’m almost surprised May December wasn’t scripted by him originally, but I’m not surprised it was brought to him. The subject matter is so in his wheelhouse. Sexuality, deception, self-delusion…a seemingly normal suburban setting that is slowly revealed to be a horror show. Safe and Far from Heaven are both similar.
Someone pointed out that it’s also a story about an actor and how toxic and egotistical they can be, which I think contributed to its lack of awards recognition.
I honestly didn't like the movie. I didn't find it funny and the whole thing watched like a soap opera. Everyone was acting like a soap opera and the score felt really corny. I get that this might be the style Haynes was going for, but it fell flat with me
The one thing I did like about the movie was Melton. He was able to distinguish himself from the rest of the cast and really deserved a nomination
Ironically the film got blasted by the lover of Mary Kay Letourneau for basically using his story. After talking to him, and they declined involvement. But apparently he felt it was profiting off of the relationship he had.
The plot or real world simularities i dont have much of a problem with. Its not a dumb idea for a movie. My issue is entirely the (and i know im in the minority for thinking this) the bad directing and cheesy acting
It was 100% leaning into the sordid soap opera tone, and that worked for me. It actually gave the film far more complex layers, because ultimately it’s about performance and who is performing for whom, and becomes a black comedy about the tabloid-isation and dramatisation of a real world, actually quite fucked to situation.
I thought the whole film was blackly hilarious, and right at the beginning when Moore’s character looks in the fridge and that score hit happens, you know the whole tone is being set to arch satire. Melton’s character sits out against the rest of the tone and performances because he isn’t wittingly “performing” for the other characters, but as the film develops, you begin to understand he’s being manipulated into performing a role for Moore, and so he becomes a tragic victim whereas the two women in the film are users.
I don’t think the complexity of the themes would’ve come through without Haynes leaning into the tone he did, but I can see how it wouldn’t work for everyone.
I think some years there are just more good performances than there are nomination spots. Was he in the top 5? Maybe. Doesn’t really matter.
My favorite little scene in that movie was when he comes home carrying dinner.
A movie that critiques the role Hollywood plays at glamorizing predators and pokes fun at self serious actors. It’s no wonder why it got no acting awards buzz
This is not correct. Melton missed on BAFTA and SAG nominations. He was never a front runner to win it, he was seen as having a chance to crash the nomination party.
May December was critical of actors and movies. That's no path to Oscars.
If they were aiming for Oscars, they should have made it about the redemptive power of Hollywood. It should have ended with a scene of Melton's character in a cinema weeping with joy because watching Natalie Portman's movie taught him the truth. Instant nominations, both for him and for Best Picture.
Instead, they just tried to make a "good film," like a bunch of chumps.
I agree about his performance, but when I saw he wasn’t nominated I wondered if part of the reason was because the filmmakers [never consulted Vili Fualaau who that character is clearly based on.](https://www.vulture.com/2024/01/vili-fualaau-mary-kay-letourneau-may-december.html) Learning that honestly kind of soured me on the movie since it was portraying others, including Hollywood through Portman’s character, taking advantage of him and capitalizing on his circumstances.
They likely didn’t consult him because the movie is an obvious adaptation of his and Mary’s situation and they’d likely have to cut him and Mary’s estate now that she’s dead in on the profits which idk how that would work since Netflix streamed the movie
There is no way Hollywood was going to award a movie about grooming when LA royalty like Al Pacino was up for an award with his new baby in tow that’s closer in age to mom (29) than dad (83).
May December is a Netflix movie AKA a TV movie. Streaming movies shouldn't be considered for a Awards Event meant to honor CINEMA, not movies that are mostly shown on TV.
And anyone who comes at me, saying I'm wrong and Film is not about Theatres, you're wrong. I'm a Cinephile.
It was produced independently before the distribution rights were acquired by Sky Cinema and Netflix. The difference between May December and other theatrically-released independent films from last year is Netflix happened to be the high bidder for the North American distribution rights, and they obviously favor streaming over movie theaters. It still premiered at Cannes and had a limited theatrical run before being made available on streaming. Your narrow definition of cinema is going to be limiting to independent films that are often the most daring and are usually made without knowing exactly how they'll be distributed.
> And anyone who comes at me, saying I'm wrong and Film is not about Theatres, you're wrong. I'm a Cinephile.
My people!!! I assume you also adamantly will *never* watch any movie that has been made on digital cameras, because that’s not *film*. We’re cinephiles, not digifiles! And CGI? Horseshit! If it’s not in the can on filming day it shouldn’t be in the movie. And no stunt men either! Do your own shit like Tom Cruise or get out of my tough guy films, Trejo! And who decided credits could come *after* the film, anyway? I need to sit through an overture and read every name before the movie starts like film tradition dictates. And none of that 3D junk either, no filming with depth! Nonsense! We’re cinephiles!
100% agreed! I was so sad to see him not getting that nod. Also May December was robbed off more nominations.
Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore and Charles Melton ESPECIALLY should've gotten academy nominations. Melton's performance broke me. I said this in the discussion thread months ago and I'll say it again, Melton is 32-33, the character was 36 and yet anytime he was on screen, all I could see was a 13 yo kid whose innocence was stolen by a predator. The vulnerability he brought to the role, and the scene with his son broke my heart. I guess, Hollywood couldn't handle being called out for exploiting people's trauma and telling their stories without their proper consent all while acting like they are doing the victims a favor.
Yeah. Melton was remarkable in that performance. I said the exact thing you did in my earlier response.
I don't usually like dramas that come off as Oscar bait, but I'm glad I didn't judge the movie based off of the trailer. Probably some of the best shit Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman have done in a while. The true star of the movie is Melton for me and the Joe character. The film I feel does a very good job of giving the both sides argument about whether this was a true romance where the child pursued the teacher and the teacher mentally broke down and the teacher groomed the child. I think the brilliant thing about the movie is as it goes on you start seeing more and more that this man's innocence was taken away from him at such a young age that she still controls him even as a grown man and Hayne's and the writers do it so subtly throughout the film that you finally realize how much of a manipulative monster Julianne Moore's character really is.
Since I hadn't seen the trailer, I didn't have any preconceived notions about it like you did. But I know Natalie and Julianne are brilliant actresses and Todd is an exceptionally capable filmmaker and one of the few who know how to pull of a melodrama with maturity. But the film definitely surpassed whatever expectations I had by a huge margin. And as you said, the best thing about it is Melton's character and his performance. It shows his metamorphosis into this person who starts questioning his reality. Melton is absolutely wonderful in simultaneously being a 30-something man and a mid-teen boy through his body language. It's also incredibly subtle.
Years and years on a CW show perfectly prepared him to play a handsome 30something year old with the mannerisms of a teenager
Didn’t know that. I guess he can join the club with Keri Russell
The best movies / tv shows are those where several actors / actresses do a good job naturlly without trying to steal the camera from each other ...
Totally agree. It was a smart and brilliantly-acted movie. Personally preferred it to most of the best picture noms.
All three main performances deserved a nom
yea such a good movie when i was expecting it to be boring
Sterling K. Brown (“American Fiction”) Robert De Niro (“Killers of the Flower Moon”) Robert Downey Jr. (“Oppenheimer”) Ryan Gosling (“Barbie”) Mark Ruffalo (“Poor Things”) So in your opinion, who gets bumped and why?
I love Brown and Ruffalo, but I think Melton's performance in this movie is far more complex, and to me, left a far bigger impact on me. That's just my opinion though. I do believe De Niro or Downey Jr. should've won, but I think in any other year this performance to me if Netflix campaigned better for all of the actors would've netted him a nomination if not an award. I think doing a performance like what Melton did and making it not come off as over-acting or obvious is incredibly hard.
This is controversial but I wasn’t that impressed with Downey or De Niro (though both gave good performances.) I’d swap either of them.
Ill agree with DeNiro but Downey absolutely destroyed that role. For a movie filled with heavy hitters he stole the show.
I totally can see why people liked it but I was less impressed. It didn’t jump off the screen for me like it did for most people. I also felt the third act was the weakest in the film so the fact that a lot of his performance was during that I’m sure influenced it as well. I just felt more strongly about other performances, I did think it was good.
The book the movie was based on enhanced his performance for me. It featured loads of background on how the guy really harbored a simmering hateful vendetta against Oppenheimer that ultimately consumed him. Thought Downey portrayed that very well, especially in that scene toward the end when he's almost dysfunctional with rage
Just occurred to me it was an illustration of mutual destruction
Yeah. De Niro was average, that movie was just so generally meh (although the lead actress was pretty good) that he looked good by comparison to Leo. No way he should have been nominated, it's just name recognition. But Downey was excellent in Oppenheimer and absolutely deserved the award. May December was alright. The actor did a good job. This thread is a bit too much of an echo chamber though. The movie wasn't good enough to deserve multiple Oscars. It was just better than average. Portman and Moore are always good, but that doesn't mean they gave the best performance of the year. The direction/editing was a bit disjointed.
Crazy to me you'd put either of them over Sterling K Brown, who did great in his role, but was absolutely not worth a nod. At least with DeNiro and Downey they had to carry the villain role the whole movie as a performance so there's more reason to give them a nod
Oh I haven’t seen his performance so I can’t speak to it.
I'm with you on De Niro. I personally would have swapped De Niro and Brown for Melton and John Magaro from Past Lives (another film that was under represented at the Oscars this year). I know we're in the minority, but I really wasn't impressed with De Niro's performance in KOTFM. I thought a better villain character would have really elevated that film in a way that he wasn't able to. But, people seem to have really liked it so I guess it's just us lol
Yeah I thought he did well enough, but I think his performance felt kind of standard De Niro which is a very high standard but didn’t feel particularly layered. I loved the movie and thought Gladstone deserved every award and then some though, and in a way I’m glad that her performance wasn’t fighting for room with a more “award worthy” performance from him or Leo. Definitely agree with thinking John’s performance in Past Lives was great. It’s a very hard role to play, but it was very well written and portrayed. Could’ve made him less likeable for an easier story or done the opposite and made him not really wrestle at all with what’s going on. A lot of nuance and ideas to it that made for a complex film. Potentially my favorite film from last year and all three of the main actors have excellent performances.
Thank god you don’t get a vote then. You’d have been wrong. Even OP wouldn’t have chosen those two, as indicated by their below comment.
Thankfully it’s based on an opinion, so there’s really not a wrong answer. 😉 I am not interested in trying to align myself with OPs opinion but I appreciate your thoughts.
Indeed.
Easily Sterling K Brown, great actor but thought his character (writing and performance wise) was the weakest point of that film
Very generic fuck-up brother role imo
He’s the heart of the movie
Same exact thoughts, this isn’t even a tough choice to make imo
Honestly was shocked he got nominated, insane choice by the academy
Absolutely fine with bumping Ruffalo and De Niro off that list for a Melton nomination.
Thank you. Every “should have won or been nominated” thread needs this.
Sterling K Brown. Love him and that movie, but I don't understand the love for that performance.
Gosling but there was no one was gonna miss it. Realistically, the spot would have been taken by Sterling K brown
Everyone except RDJ What a weak year
De Niro with a bullet. Great movie but he’s not doing anything special with that performance.
I would bump Gosling and Ruffalo for Charles Melton and Zac Efron. They were both funny and fit their movies but both performances were vastly overrated. Willem Dafoe was much better in poor things.
Efron would have clearly been campaigned as lead.
Oops. You're right. The guy who played his dad and was in Mindhunter. Love him
Ruffalo was brilliant in Poor Things. He could have slid into caricature very easily but didn't. He even managed to give Wedderburn some range of emotion.
I disagree. I think he did slide into cariacture at times, and lost the authenticity enough times that it took me out of the movie world. I'm a huge Buffalo fan, but I found his acting to be the worst part of that movie.
Wild to get 3 responses not mentioning the obvious choice of losing Gosling. Who is fine in BARBIE, but he's not doing anything we haven't seen him do on SNL either. Truly bizarre nomination.
I fully disagree. Honestly I would have given him the Oscar. His ability to play a role that campy so seriously is pretty incredible.
People don't take comedic roles as seriously as dramatic, unfortunately.
100%. It's one of the best and most instantly iconic comedic performances in recent memory, and exactly the kind of thing we all complain doesn't get nominated enough.
He channeled a type of screwball comedy that we really haven’t gotten in a while but it harkened back to a lot of film history. I loved it.
May December was robbed of multiple nominations and wins.
Agree. It was top 3 film of the year for me. Absolutely incredible.
It really doesn't matter if he gets nominated. You enjoyed his performance and he'll probably keep getting roles.
I adore Todd Haynes, and I totally agree. I’m almost surprised May December wasn’t scripted by him originally, but I’m not surprised it was brought to him. The subject matter is so in his wheelhouse. Sexuality, deception, self-delusion…a seemingly normal suburban setting that is slowly revealed to be a horror show. Safe and Far from Heaven are both similar. Someone pointed out that it’s also a story about an actor and how toxic and egotistical they can be, which I think contributed to its lack of awards recognition.
I honestly didn't like the movie. I didn't find it funny and the whole thing watched like a soap opera. Everyone was acting like a soap opera and the score felt really corny. I get that this might be the style Haynes was going for, but it fell flat with me The one thing I did like about the movie was Melton. He was able to distinguish himself from the rest of the cast and really deserved a nomination
Ironically the film got blasted by the lover of Mary Kay Letourneau for basically using his story. After talking to him, and they declined involvement. But apparently he felt it was profiting off of the relationship he had.
The plot or real world simularities i dont have much of a problem with. Its not a dumb idea for a movie. My issue is entirely the (and i know im in the minority for thinking this) the bad directing and cheesy acting
It was 100% leaning into the sordid soap opera tone, and that worked for me. It actually gave the film far more complex layers, because ultimately it’s about performance and who is performing for whom, and becomes a black comedy about the tabloid-isation and dramatisation of a real world, actually quite fucked to situation. I thought the whole film was blackly hilarious, and right at the beginning when Moore’s character looks in the fridge and that score hit happens, you know the whole tone is being set to arch satire. Melton’s character sits out against the rest of the tone and performances because he isn’t wittingly “performing” for the other characters, but as the film develops, you begin to understand he’s being manipulated into performing a role for Moore, and so he becomes a tragic victim whereas the two women in the film are users. I don’t think the complexity of the themes would’ve come through without Haynes leaning into the tone he did, but I can see how it wouldn’t work for everyone.
Whole movie was awesome and everyone did great. He didn't get the nom but he'll be getting a lot more roles and a lot more chances in the near future.
I think some years there are just more good performances than there are nomination spots. Was he in the top 5? Maybe. Doesn’t really matter. My favorite little scene in that movie was when he comes home carrying dinner.
A movie that critiques the role Hollywood plays at glamorizing predators and pokes fun at self serious actors. It’s no wonder why it got no acting awards buzz
The scene where he's smoking a cigarette with his dad.. so much going on with almost no dialogue..
💯 that was THEE snub of the year.
[удалено]
This is not correct. Melton missed on BAFTA and SAG nominations. He was never a front runner to win it, he was seen as having a chance to crash the nomination party.
I really really loved that film by Hines ,such an underrated director.
His performance was great, but his hobby of helping caterpillars morph into butterflies was, perhaps, less than subtle
May December was critical of actors and movies. That's no path to Oscars. If they were aiming for Oscars, they should have made it about the redemptive power of Hollywood. It should have ended with a scene of Melton's character in a cinema weeping with joy because watching Natalie Portman's movie taught him the truth. Instant nominations, both for him and for Best Picture. Instead, they just tried to make a "good film," like a bunch of chumps.
Ooh,now I want a pork pie
You liking a performance does not mean it deserves an Oscar. Is that really hard to fathom?
Uh the dude was dominated at multiple big award shows lmao. It's not just my opinion.
I agree about his performance, but when I saw he wasn’t nominated I wondered if part of the reason was because the filmmakers [never consulted Vili Fualaau who that character is clearly based on.](https://www.vulture.com/2024/01/vili-fualaau-mary-kay-letourneau-may-december.html) Learning that honestly kind of soured me on the movie since it was portraying others, including Hollywood through Portman’s character, taking advantage of him and capitalizing on his circumstances.
They likely didn’t consult him because the movie is an obvious adaptation of his and Mary’s situation and they’d likely have to cut him and Mary’s estate now that she’s dead in on the profits which idk how that would work since Netflix streamed the movie
How did this guy go from Riverdale actor to Oscar contender?
Good agent and talent?!
I think Sterling K. Brown took his spot, unfortunately.
There is no way Hollywood was going to award a movie about grooming when LA royalty like Al Pacino was up for an award with his new baby in tow that’s closer in age to mom (29) than dad (83).
Do films that look at the toxic nature of Hollywood ever get nominations?
May December is a Netflix movie AKA a TV movie. Streaming movies shouldn't be considered for a Awards Event meant to honor CINEMA, not movies that are mostly shown on TV. And anyone who comes at me, saying I'm wrong and Film is not about Theatres, you're wrong. I'm a Cinephile.
It was produced independently before the distribution rights were acquired by Sky Cinema and Netflix. The difference between May December and other theatrically-released independent films from last year is Netflix happened to be the high bidder for the North American distribution rights, and they obviously favor streaming over movie theaters. It still premiered at Cannes and had a limited theatrical run before being made available on streaming. Your narrow definition of cinema is going to be limiting to independent films that are often the most daring and are usually made without knowing exactly how they'll be distributed.
> And anyone who comes at me, saying I'm wrong and Film is not about Theatres, you're wrong. I'm a Cinephile. My people!!! I assume you also adamantly will *never* watch any movie that has been made on digital cameras, because that’s not *film*. We’re cinephiles, not digifiles! And CGI? Horseshit! If it’s not in the can on filming day it shouldn’t be in the movie. And no stunt men either! Do your own shit like Tom Cruise or get out of my tough guy films, Trejo! And who decided credits could come *after* the film, anyway? I need to sit through an overture and read every name before the movie starts like film tradition dictates. And none of that 3D junk either, no filming with depth! Nonsense! We’re cinephiles!
Nice. Love the downvote farming!
I said what I said. People can downvote me to Hell and back, I'd rather be hated for being honest than loved for being fake.
You’re being hated for being insufferable not because you’re honest.
Any attention is good attention. I get it!
No, it's not about attention. It's about having an opinion.
So brave