34 minutes ago, akatosh said:

Leonardo DiCaprio’s ‘Flower Moon’ Snub: Why the Oscars Have a Love-Hate Relationship With the Star

Leonardo DiCaprio, once again, missed out on an Oscar nomination.

But that comes as no surprise.

DiCaprio’s portrayal of easily-led naiveté and of greed blotting out love helps to set the tone of last year’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” just as his vexed internal conflict drives “The Departed” forward and his headlong passion launched a million “Titanic” fans.

It’s hard to feel bad for DiCaprio — who, first of all, is among the world’s most famous (and famously high-living) celebrities, and, what’s more, did indeed finally get his trophy. After an aggressive campaign that leaned hard on the notion that he’d been pushed to the edge of safety, and, perhaps, sanity in “The Revenant,” he picked up his award.

 

 

And while his derring-do and his survival instincts in that film were indeed a feat, they weren’t what DiCaprio does best. This makes him one of many performers whose Oscar is for work unrepresentative of the rest of their oeuvre, sure. But it also speaks to something greater. The Oscars‘ love-hate relationship with DiCaprio — in which so much of his best work, from “The Departed” to “Catch Me If You Can” to “Revolutionary Road,” has gone entirely un-nominated — suggests an industry that’s never quite been at ease with what one of its biggest stars can do.

By the time DiCaprio appeared in “Titanic,” he had already been an Oscar nominee for playing an intellectually disabled teenager in 1993’s “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape”; that role was the sort that’s easy to recognize as a standout, and DiCaprio, then, was laden with none of the baggage that would get ported in on the Ship of Dreams. “Titanic” made him an international fixation, a heartthrob with real artistic ambitions of the sort that hadn’t, perhaps, been seen since Beatty, or Valentino. The hysteria around him may have been judged its own reward; when “Titanic” reeled in 14 nominations, DiCaprio’s name wasn’t called, and he skipped the ceremony entirely.

Was DiCaprio worthy of an award for “Titanic”? People have been nominated for less than helping to anchor the romance at the center of the biggest film ever made. And what might have seemed like a “snub” began to blossom into a grudge, with DiCaprio never meaningfully in contention for the next grown-up movies he made, “Catch Me If You Can” and “Gangs of New York,” both released in 2002. What DiCaprio would have to do to catch Oscar’s eye began to glimmer into clarity with 2004’s “The Aviator,” for which he was nominated. In “Titanic” and “Catch Me If You Can,” he’d made a meal out of his personal charm, showing both his suavity and its limits. In “The Aviator,” in which he depicted the downward spiral into madness suffered by real-life magnate Howard Hughes, he was made to suffer.

 

Which takes nothing away from the performance — a very strong one, in fact, and the one that cemented the collaboration he’d begun with Martin Scorsese on the set of “Gangs of New York” as a real going concern. But what the voters seemed to want from DiCaprio was to see meaningful effort, to watch that pretty face contort with a bit of agony. Just two years later, he sat at the center of “The Departed,” the film that would eventually win best picture, and played out a struggle of divided loyalties and self-sacrifice through a chewy Boston accent. His race to talk his way out of each jam with a certain criminal charisma made for movie-star work, the kind that Oscar seems to recognize for many performers but him. DiCaprio’s nomination that year for less substantial work in a less impressive movie, “Blood Diamond,” came as a surprise only until one recalled that in the Edward Zwick thriller, DiCaprio’s Rhodesian accent was even more tactically deployed. Once again, DiCaprio was honored only once he made it clear he was striving for it.

So it went for DiCaprio, once again ignored for a reunion with “Titanic” co-star Kate Winslet in 2008’s “Revolutionary Road,” in which both partners personified plainspoken and unaffected agony within a marriage. (This one may not have just been a DiCaprio thing; Winslet’s nomination, and win, that year, came for playing an illiterate Nazi, perhaps history’s greatest example of being made to show one’s work.) And with “The Wolf of Wall Street” in 2013 — coming a year after a might-have-been-nominated turn as the charismatic evil at the center of Oscar favorite “Django Unchained” — DiCaprio made a three-hour-long heel turn, a depiction of bottomless avarice studded with ingenious physical comedy, look effortless. Which may have been why he lost to Matthew McConaughey, whose physical decline as a rodeo cowboy with AIDS in “Dallas Buyers Club” was rooted in effort one could see scrawled across the screen.

DiCaprio certainly seemed to want an Oscar by the time “The Revenant” came around, and the stars aligned — including a field of competitors that call to mind the season of “Survivor” structured with a cast designed to let fourth-time returnee Rob Mariano walk to a victory. There are plenty of stars who’ve waited for a win, but few whose core characteristics as performers — in this case, a charisma that can easily be turned towards manipulation or chilly amorality — seem to leave the Academy unmoved. (That he ended up nominated for “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” may be explained by some curse finally having been lifted with his winning for playing an uncomplicated secular saint who suffers for our sins in “The Revenant.” Or maybe it’s just that in “Hollywood” he gets a hero’s ending.)

So it is with “Killers of the Flower Moon,” in which DiCaprio puts every bit of himself into playing a character one would never want to meet. Perhaps it really is exhausting rooting for the anti-hero, or even just watching him. DiCaprio’s wiliness in exploiting Lily Gladstone’s (beautifully played, as well) character draws upon his essential gifts, and his ability to conjure his character’s nascent and uncomplicated thoughts as though they’re occurring to him for the first time is a testament to DiCaprio’s ability to draw out the shades of meaning from the elemental, just as he did finding stardom in the “Titanic” screenplay. It’s not a set of skills the Oscars seem to want for a man who got his prize, finally, for fighting bears, even as all fans might have wanted to do was see him use his silver tongue to talk the beast into submission.

 

Or maybe it’s something else. DiCaprio, after all, was finally given the prize once he went as far as it’s possible to go on a film set, and then told us about it, and told us about it. But this is the same performer who skipped the ceremony when the film he was in had made him the biggest actor on earth, and won best picture; he’s the same performer who’s used each of his glancingly rare media opportunities, this time around, to talk about how special a scene partner Lily Gladstone is. (And Gladstone now appears likely to win best actress.)

DiCaprio’s lifestyle makes headlines, and he’s one of the only actors on earth who could get a film as expensive and not-obviously-commercial as “Killers of the Flower Moon” greenlit. Having won at last, DiCaprio doesn’t seem to need another Oscar, not when he already has it all. And need — that thing that pushes past demonstrations of movie-star charm with big accents or broad suffering, even though movie-star charm is what makes movies work — is at the center of the Oscars. DiCaprio, in the end, will be fine without another prize, and the Oscars, just as they have over the course of his career, seem to recognize that.

https://variety.com/2024/film/columns/leonardo-dicaprio-oscar-snub-killers-of-the-flower-moon-titanic-1235883271/

🥹♥️

Sweet words from Lily about Leo:

Have you had a chance to speak to Leonardo DiCaprio or any of the other people from the film yet?

Leo was maybe the third or fourth person to text me congratulations. I was on the phone with my parents, and I had my mom flip the camera around so I could see the news on their faces, rather than on the screen. I didn’t want to watch the screen of the broadcast because I knew I could see that later. I wanted to see my parents’ reactions. But first thing after Leo’s category, they were like, “We are simultaneously so excited and so pissed off.”

 

I couldn’t have done what I did in this film without what he did. He made an impossible character so real, and he made my job so much easier by the immense, difficult work that he put in. So, I’m definitely sharing this with him, even though I wish he would have gotten his due, too.  

https://ew.com/oscars-2024-lily-gladstone-first-native-american-nominated-for-best-actress-interview-8548033

 

17 minutes ago, akatosh said:

Sweet words from Lily about Leo:

Have you had a chance to speak to Leonardo DiCaprio or any of the other people from the film yet?

Leo was maybe the third or fourth person to text me congratulations. I was on the phone with my parents, and I had my mom flip the camera around so I could see the news on their faces, rather than on the screen. I didn’t want to watch the screen of the broadcast because I knew I could see that later. I wanted to see my parents’ reactions. But first thing after Leo’s category, they were like, “We are simultaneously so excited and so pissed off.”

 

I couldn’t have done what I did in this film without what he did. He made an impossible character so real, and he made my job so much easier by the immense, difficult work that he put in. So, I’m definitely sharing this with him, even though I wish he would have gotten his due, too.  

https://ew.com/oscars-2024-lily-gladstone-first-native-american-nominated-for-best-actress-interview-8548033

 

They both absolutely deserved it! I wish it was based on the performance and not on how much promotion you do. 
 

Also, this is pretty cool as well!

 

However, I do not believe the Academy will allow any Native American to actually win in this category or in Best Actress, but one can hope.

Weird.

 

Claim: Paul Thomas Anderson Wrote ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’, NOT Eric Roth [Updated]

UPDATED: I don’t want to name names here, but two sources of mine, one of which worked extensively on Scorsese’s film, are confirming Bramesco’s claim. There might, or might not, be a few trades reporting on this soon. If I was able to corroborate it then it’ll be very easy for them to do the same.

Also, this was posted on the Hollywood Elsewhere comments section around nine months ago:

EARLIER: A major claim is being made by The Guardian’s Charles Bramesco. He says that the “Killers of the Flower Moon” script was actually not written by Eric Roth, but rather by Paul Thomas Anderson!

On X, a user pointed out that Roth had been snubbed of an adapted screenplay Oscar nomination this morning. It was indeed a surprise given that he was supposed to be a cinch to get nominated. Bramesco replied …

The writer [Roth] hasn’t been on the circuit, because I heard pretty much the entire thing was rewritten by … PTA.

We already know that there was a total script overhaul for ‘Killers.’ Scorsese and DiCaprio decided that, instead of depicting the point of view of the FBI, they were going to focus on the story of the Osage nation.

It was thought that Roth had written both of these versions of the film, but Bramesco is implying that PTA came in and reportedly rewrote all of the script from scratch. That’s a bold move on his part, and, possibly, a tad unprofessional.

It is odd, but not out of the ordinary, for a writer to get credited for a screenplay they didn’t write. However, Roth was being campaigned for Oscar consideration and has been nominated by other voting bodies. I’ve contacted Roth to comment on the story. I’ll be updating this one if anything else comes out in the next few hours ...

1 hour ago, Sugarwater said:

Also, this is pretty cool as well!

There was a song in KOTFM? Is it the one when the osages dancing in circles in the very end?

6 minutes ago, Jade Bahr said:

There was a song in KOTFM? Is it the one when the osages dancing in circles in the very end?

Yes. That’s the one.

https://tulsaworld.com/life-entertainment/local/music/killers-of-the-flower-moon-song-created-by-oklahomans-makes-oscar-shortlist/article_873c8760-b572-11ee-bda4-a78e9259fc89.html

@Sugarwater thx

 

There are a LOT of first time oscar nominees this year I have to say. It's kinda nice.

 

Also congrats to Marty for this record!

 

Overall view:

 

 

Soul food

 

Leonardo DiCaprio’s Oscars snub for Killers of the Flower Moon is ridiculous

I'm no Scorsese diehard but I struggle to think of a more perfect film

The announcement of the Oscars shortlist today hasn’t yielded many surprises: big names Oppenheimer, Poor Things, The Holdovers, Barbie and Maestro come up again and again (though Margot Robbie is nowhere to be seen in the Best Actress category). The nominations mean that everyone is talking about the biggest and best films of the year: Oppenheimer, which has already swept the Golden Globes and is tipped to win big again; the shocking and taboo Poor Things, for which Emma Stone has rightly received a lot of hype and is now up for Best Actress; Celine Song’s delicate, moving Past Lives, about the rekindling of a childhood relationship, which has deservedly been nominated for Best Picture.

 

But somehow, it feels as though people aren’t talking nearly enough about the best of them all: Killers of the Flower Moon, which is up for Best Picture, Costume Design, Original Song, Original Score, Production Design, Editing and Cinematography, along with Best Supporting Actor (Robert De Niro), Actress (Lily Gladstone) and Director (Martin Scorsese). This may seem like a lot, but they’re all deserved – and frankly, it’s a travesty that Leonardo DiCaprio has been snubbed in the Best Actor category. I’m no Scorsese diehard, but I would struggle to think of a more perfect film. It deserves to win every Oscar going.

 

It’s not an easy watch: Killers of the Flower Moon is a Western tragedy, about the gradual theft of land and assets from the Osage, a Native tribe in Oklahoma, in the 1920s, who are wealthy due to the oil on their reservation. A cattle rancher, William King Hale (De Niro), poses as a benevolent benefactor of the native people but is secretly killing them, using his nephew Ernest Burkhart (DiCaprio) as a weapon when he falls in love with Mollie (Gladstone) and marries into the family. It’s based on David Grann’s non-fiction book of the same name.

 

Everyone’s first thought when they set out to watch Killers is about its length – at three and a half hours, it’s hardly a weeknight watch. But I didn’t look away once, or at any point think about how long was left, or pop to the loo or the cinema Ben & Jerry’s bar (the same cannot be said of my experience watching Oppenheimer). This is a film that manages to be constantly gripping and chilling, despite its extremely slow burn.

 

In fact, the slow burn is absolutely crucial. As Hale and Burkhart systematically pick off Osage people, the grief of those left – including Mollie – deepens and deepens. It’s a long, painful process, and we almost feel her agony in real time, watching her slowly deteriorate as the people she loves disappear, and she is manipulated into thinking Ernest is looking after her. This is Scorsese, so there is plenty of violence and destruction, but this – along with the lengthy runtime – never feels indulgent or gratuitous. It’s necessary to make us not only understand but go some way in feeling the scope of the horrors.

 

Combine that with a haunting, pulsating soundtrack by Robbie Robertson, seemingly endless Wild West skies, and sublimely beautiful moments of Scorsese surrealism-cum-native folklore (such as the recurring owl motif, or the peaceful, dreamlike scene on the deathbed of Mollie’s mother), and you get one of the most darkly powerful films in living memory. A meta coda, which nods to the irony of the story being told by a white man, is a fitting end.

 

All this, without even mentioning the performances – De Niro chills you to your core as the ruthless abuser; DiCaprio is gut wrenching as his greedy, gullible pawn; and Gladstone is breathtaking as a woman experiencing grief that is almost inconceivable, let alone imaginable. (Earlier in January, she became the first indigenous woman to win a Golden Globe.)

 

Though Scorsese is no stranger to violence and evil characters, the way it manifests in Killers of the Flower Moon feels like little we’ve seen before on the big screen: cold, calculated and subtle. De Niro and DiCaprio are two actors the director often turns to, though, for similar roles: think of the young De Niro in Taxi Driver (1976), being gradually radicalised, or DiCaprio in Shutter Island (2010), self-sabotaging and confused. The result is performances that feel fresh, but actors who know exactly what they’re doing.

 

That the Baftas snubbed Killers in the acting and directing categories was a disgrace. We can only hope the Oscars, already on thin ice with DiCaprio, gets it right. Killers of the Flower Moon is a stone cold masterpiece, and must, at the very least, win Best Picture.

Allegedly the summery of Leos new PTA movie LOL

 

Jade

 

What the person posted IS the plot line of Pynchon's novel Vineland which was from the start what some thought PTA's film would be based on.  I guess once filming begins , we'll have a better idea especially if we see lots of people dressed as hippies   

@oxford25 thx for clarification. This whole Vineland plot is hella confusing 😄 Can someone explain me what the POINT of this novel is???

Jade

 

To be honest,  I've read very detailed description of the  Vineland plot , and , personally,  it is not a storyline that appeals to me 

 

Those who believe the new movie is based on Vineland , also, think Leo will play Brock Vond ,  a federal agent who was involved in a  relationship at one point with Prarie's mother  Frenesi

 

Personally, I'm  HOPING PTA's new film is NOT based on Vineland  

1 hour ago, Jade Bahr said:

Allegedly the summery of Leos new PTA movie LOL

 

But wouldn't this movie have a contemporary setting? I am struggling to understand the character names first of all 🤣🤣.

^Yeah Zoyd sounds like someone's coming straight from space 🤣

 

47 minutes ago, oxford25 said:

Personally, I'm  HOPING PTA's new film is NOT based on Vineland  

This whole plot sounds so unappealing and meaningless good lord 🤪

14 minutes ago, oxford25 said:

Jade

 

To be honest,  I've read very detailed description of the  Vineland plot , and , personally,  it is not a storyline that appeals to me 

 

Those who believe the new movie is based on Vineland , also, think Leo will play Brock Vond ,  a federal agent who was involved in a  relationship at one point with Prarie's mother  Frenesi

 

Personally, I'm  HOPING PTA's new film is NOT based on Vineland  

Well whether it's Vineland or another project 

, eventhough Vineland doesn't sound too appealing but if it's really vineland I won't be mad cause I know Leo chooses his projects carefully so ofc the adaptation is very good, I trust his choices😘

Isn’t Eureka, CA featured in the book Vineland?

27 minutes ago, Sugarwater said:

Isn’t Eureka, CA featured in the book Vineland?

Yeah this is why Jordan Ruimy still doesn't let go of this idea.

 

Could PTA’s Next Film Still Be ‘Vineland’?

Jade

 

Maybe instead of playing the 'bad guy' Brock Vond  who represents the evil /oppressive gov't   ,  Leo will be playing Zoyd and Regina is his long lost wife Frenesi  

 

And , it is Sean Penn who plays Brock Vond 

 

Like I said above when they actually start filming , if we see lots of extras that are dressed like hippies , then we know it is Vineland  

 

Whatever it is , I hope we get pix from the filming  

 

 

Pami

 

As to 'contemporary, it could be it is the general storyline of Vineland, but PTA has changed the  'era' , and it is set in 2024  

 

 

17 minutes ago, oxford25 said:

Jade

 

Maybe instead of playing the 'bad guy' Brock Vond  who represents the evil /oppressive gov't   ,  Leo will be playing Zoyd and Regina is his long lost wife Frenesi  

 

And , it is Sean Penn who plays Brock Vond 

 

Like I said above when they actually start filming , if we see lots of extras that are dressed like hippies , then we know it is Vineland  

 

Whatever it is , I hope we get pix from the filming  

 

 

Pami

 

As to 'contemporary, it could be it is the general storyline of Vineland, but PTA has changed the  'era' , and it is set in 2024  

 

 

Thanks for th explanation Oxford! I hope it's at least set in 2024 then, because Leo is always seen in period pieces.

 

@Jade Bahr, exactly, sounds like someone from space 🤣🤣.