Oscars 2021: Bill Maher on "The Debbies"

[AndyDursin]

One of Bill's funniest monologues ever on what's wrong with the Oscars....and Hollywood in 2021 as well.

Not a wrong note struck here!

[Paul MacLean]

That was awesome.

And true. I haven't been to a movie since summer of 2019 -- and not because of the pandemic. Even if Covid19 had not come along, I still wouldn't have gone, because there's been nothing I want to see.

[Eric W.]

Spot on.

[Monterey Jack]

During the Great Depression, people didn't want to see movies about starving, desperate people scrabbling to survive, they went to see fluffy musicals and sophsiticted screwball comedies to ESCAPE the terrible world they were stuck in. This year's crop of BP nominees does not have ONE authentically uplifiting movie among them. Where's our Shawshank?

[AndyDursin]

It's that -- and also the fact those adult "message movies" used to be ENTERTAINING on their own much of the time. The bit where Maher shows the stills from a litany of older Oscar winners shows just how off the track Hollywood has become. The small films that have comprised the Best Picture rosters the last few years (this one especially), movies that virtually nobody saw, are more like sermons and liberal therapy sessions, much less forms of entertainment.

I lost it when "The Immigrant Who S---t in a Coffee Can" appeared on-screen.

[Monterey Jack]

The last "adult" movie I can think of that was A.) entertaining, B.) uplifting, and C.) audiences flocked to was, weirdly, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.

[AndyDursin]

That doesn't quite fit the criteria I was thinking of in terms of traditional "serious Hollywood fare" (Oscar material) we used to get in the fall every year. That's more a typical Tarantino fantasy that speaks mainly to his fanbase. It made money but it had DiCaprio and Pitt so it was designed to -- but it also had a huge budget to match. It was packaged more like a summer blockbuster than anything else.

Either way I cant imagine how low the ratings will be for this. If it's not the most poorly viewed in history it would be a stunner!

[Monterey Jack]

Hollywood was a recent anomoly in that it was an adult-skewing, talky, star-driven drama with very little "action" (yeah, Tarantino went for broke on the bonkers climax, but that was, what, less than three percent of the running time?) that still made a lot of money and stuck around in theaters for months. When was the last time that happened? Yeah, Tarantino is a "brand name" in and of himself, but I don't remember audiences flocking to see Grindhouse or The Hateful Eight.

[AndyDursin]

Neither of those had DiCaprio (every movie he's made in the last 13 years except for "J Edgar" has cleared $100 mil domestic), Pitt, Robbie, a budget of $100 million and a high profile summer release date, with a big studio throwing all its marketing/PR muscle behind it. This project was assembled to be a "big summer movie" from the outset and had a huge budget for a Tarantino film.

It ended up in the same ballpark as Django Unchained and Inglorious Bastards -- that one opened at the exact same time of year too. That's what it was designed to do.

very little "action" (yeah, Tarantino went for broke on the bonkers climax, but that was, what, less than three percent of the running time?)

Most of his movies are talk. I mean, Inglorious Bastards is mostly a bunch of people gabbing for all its 2.5 hour duration also. But if you team DiCaprio and Pitt in this kind of project, release it in the middle of summer with a big advertising spend, you'll be making more money in the 1st weekend than THE HATEFUL EIGHT did during its entire run.

As for how long it lasted -- it did well no question. But it's also playing at a time when there's no competition to take screens away from it either. It had a demographic appeal and kept playing to it effectively so it stuck around. In other times, big star/big studio projects that weren't superhero/franchise IP crap used to hit theaters every week, as we've discussed may times before. When you're virtually the only R-rated movie of its type around, it helps.

[Monterey Jack]