My 2018 Oscar Pick for Best Picture
A few opinions on the 2018 Oscar Nominees.
Okay, I’m just going to get to it. I want ‘The Post’ to win Best Picture, and which isn’t going to happen.
The US’s lack of regard for Steven Spielberg’s ‘The Post’ is a clear indicator (to the current administration as well) that both the right as well as the left in this country have total disregard for objective truth, which is what good journalism is supposed to be. (The left generally does a lot better than the right in observing truth but we’re still moving awfully slow.)
Sadly Americans have never been the most rational of people and critical thinking is not encouraged here. Philosophy is not only dead in this country but has never really been alive, with the exception of the core Founding Fathers, who are the closest to philosophers this country has ever seen. The liberals in Hollywood should have been rallying for ‘The Post,’ but it didn’t happen and it’s a clearcut sign for worse things to come in the future of the US. (So this Hollywood liberal, and US Constitutionalist is going at it pretty much alone.)
BTW, one of the first things I thought after I calmed down from my excitement over ‘Moonlight’ winning Best Picture last year, was “They’ll take it all away next year and give it to Mel Gibson,” and I don’t think I’m that far off, in sentiment that is. I didn’t mean literally, even though I did fear a Mel Gibson film in the race, or a Clint Eastwood film for that matter.
So I don’t care much for ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,’ though I like Francis McDormand a lot, (specifically in Lisa Cholodenko’s ‘Laurel Canyon,) and I don’t care much for ‘The Shape of Water,’ about a mute woman and a big monster, who isn’t really human.
I don’t care how you twist it, not a mute woman and a big monster, not the right symbolism for what’s been going on in the US, at all.
I’m only mentioning those two since they seem to be the forerunners at this point.
(I don’t see Greta Gerwig’s ‘Ladybird’ taking it but I would be very happy if it did. It could seriously win at the Film Independent Spirit Awards though. Or even better, ‘Mudbound,’ but I won’t count on it. Maybe Best Ensemble, the Robert Altman Award, at the Spirit Awards**. Greta Gerwig for Best Director at the Oscars would make me really happy though.)
In the year of Fake News, 2017, and just getting worse, I would love to see Steven Spielberg’s ‘The Post’ win Best Picture, (it also being an excellent film of course.) And Best Director going to Dee Rees for ‘Mudbound,’ which isn’t going to happen, so hoping Greta Gerwig for Best Director.
And BTW, just to say something about Patty Jenkins’ ‘Wonder Woman,’ (which didn’t get nominated.) I absolutely love Patty Jenkins, but for ‘Monster’ specifically. A story of a woman killing her rapist and getting sentenced to death for it is enough of a ‘Wonder Woman’ to me. I really liked ‘Woman Woman,’ and I know how important it is to female audiences, and so I know Patty Jenkins will get snubbed and she deserves way better, but I’m as big of a fan of super heroes as I am of American exceptionalism*, I’m not.
A real hero is a regular human being who, pushed by adversity, does extraordinary things, who stands up against evil with righteous anger and yet dares to to hold love sacred in a world full of hate.
(And I believe Patty Jenkins’ ‘Monster’ fits into that category.)
Keeping it real.
So it’s Spielberg’s ‘The Post’ for Best Picture for me!
*And this is my understanding of American exceptionalism (from Wikipedia):
The first reference to the concept by name, and possibly its origin, was by French writer Alexis de Tocqueville in his 1835/1840 work, Democracy in America:
“The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one. Their strictly Puritanical origin, their exclusively commercial habits, even the country they inhabit, which seems to divert their minds from the pursuit of science, literature, and the arts, the proximity of Europe, which allows them to neglect these pursuits without relapsing into barbarism, a thousand special causes, of which I have only been able to point out the most important, have singularly concurred to fix the mind of the American upon purely practical objects. His passions, his wants, his education, and everything about him seem to unite in drawing the native of the United States earthward; his religion alone bids him turn, from time to time, a transient and distracted glance to heaven. Let us cease, then, to view all democratic nations under the example of the American people.”
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And please check out my other articles at medium.com/@gabriellabregmanon mainly LGBTQ- and Immigration Issues, and the State of Women and LGBTQ People in Film, and at medium.com/queerwomenfilmmakersmagazine , on Lesbian/Queer Film and Intersectional Feminism as well as Queer Female Sexuality and Gender Identity.
Here are a few titles:
A Few Notes on US Immigration Exclusion Policies Towards Women- and LGBT Immigrants (2014)
A Note on the State of Women in Film (2016)
A Few Notes on LGBTQ Filmmaking (2017)
On ‘Moonlight’ and the Subject of Positive Representation (2017)
The 2016 Valentine’s Day Filmmakers Manifesto (2016)
THE ROOT CAUSE OF MISOGYNY, AND THE NECESSITY OF FREE WILL(Gender Binary System notes, part 1 of 7)
THE MALE AND FEMALE BRAIN, AND THE CAUSE OF TRANSGENDERISM (Gender Binary System notes, part 2 of 7)
THE REASONS I AM NOT TRANSITIONING (Gender Binary System notes, part 3 of 7)
MY PRONOUNS: THEY/THEM/THEIRS (Gender Binary System notes, part 5 of 7)
ON LOOKING ANDROGYNOUS THROUGHOUT MY YOUTH, WHILE ALSO BEING GENDER NONCONFORMING (Gender Binary System notes, part 6 of 7)
Click for Complete List of Articles (2016)
My name is Gabriella Bregman, I am a Hollywood-based writer, filmmaker, producer, currently in post-production of a feature documentary called ‘The Queer Case for Individual Rights,’ through my film production company ‘Bregman Films.’
You can find me mostly on Facebook for right now, (facebook.com/gabriellabregman,) where I also maintain a Facebook Group called ‘Queer Women Filmmakers and Writers — Los Angeles’
In September of 2017 I founded a nonprofit organization, ‘Queer Women Filmmakers Magazine,’ a Media Site and Magazine Publication for Queer Women Filmmakers.
In early 2018 article submissions will be accepted for paid publication on the site and in the print version, (quarterly.)
The publication medium.com/queerwomenfilmmakersmagazine exists in conjunction with the Queer Women Filmmakers Magazine website queerwomenfilmmakersmagazine.org
