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Argo deserves special condemnation as the worst Best Picture Oscar winner of the decade. As a movie, it's competently made but nothing special. Historically illiterate and whitewashing a bunch of things, but that’s normal for big-budget dramas. As a piece of film history, though, it’s a good example of how much Hollywood loves itself and America despite mountains of evidence that both are actually very bad. It managed to win when put up against Beasts of the Southern Wild, Life of Pi, and Django Unchained, and all it had to do was flatter the film industry as geniuses and humanitarians and heroes, and cheaply invoke patriotism during crisis. Worse than all that, Argo is a literal psyop that managed to partially rehabilitate the CIA through its release exactly a month after that agency’s worst disaster in recent history (yeah, Benghazi!). The critical adoration seems highly suspect in hindsight, but unsurprising even if the CIA wasn’t paying everyone off. That whole era of state power intersecting with official culture is a garbage pit that should be filled in and forgotten.
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Oct 29, 2019 01:33
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 11:11 |
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Alfred P. Pseudonym posted:gently caress, I just remembered that 300: Rise of an Empire exists There's a bunch of forgotten big budget historical epics from the first half of the decade listed on my Letterboxd that I know I've seen but couldn't say much about except that they're terrible: Clash/Wrath of the Titans, 47 Ronin, Hercules starring The Rock. I'm sure there are a bunch more I haven't seen.
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Oct 29, 2019 03:01
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