Challenge Complete: Watch the Same Movie 5 Nights in a Row

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3 Responses

  1. Well done. Matt has challenged me to do the 5 day movie challenge, but like you, I know that life is finite and I can only watch so many movies. If I have 5 free 2-hour periods, I am going to watch 5 different movies. I do not bar the possibility of returning to the same one someday, but 5 nights in a row is something I don’t think I’ll be doing until I’m making a living off this.

    I like your observation that this won best adapted screenplay due to a process of elimination. There are other aspects as well. There is the romantic notions of the Academy (the Coppolla legacy), the honest votes (a screenplay isn’t just dialogue. You’ve looked at the script, I imagine more than half of it is made of the other things that make a movie…and some scripts are good for the maleability to hand the reins to actors who improvise), and a combination of the romantic and the honest which I will call the Cool Factor.

    When Tarentino won best screenplay for Pulp Fiction, then lost best picture to Forrest Gump (which still hurts to say) he said that he won “the cool award.” A way of saying that the voters give the big award to prestige (12 Years a Slave which won the other screenplay award) and the cool award to the movie that is really the best, the most interesting, the most clever, the funniest, etc (Her, which only won one prize, for orig. script*). “Lost in Translation” was definitely the cool movie that year (hip writer/director, hot young actress, moody, great soundtrack, revolutionary use of Mr Murray). Meanwhile Jackson and Walsh won adapted screenplay for “Young Mr Frodo and the Comeback King” which was the prestige win. To echo your sentiments regarding Coppola’s win, LOTR:ROTK isn’t the most quotable script ever, but it sure does adapt a tough book pretty well. Did it deserve the win? Maybe, although I think that “American Splendor” was a much more inventive adaptation (to say the least).

    Now I have a sudden urge to watch American Splendor 5 nights in a row, if you’ll excuse me.

    Keep up the good work.

    *Spike Jonze wrote “Her” and was the model for Giovanni Ribisi’s character.

    • jmgariepy says:

      Hey, thanks Craig! You bring up some good points, especially that the screenplay isn’t just the dialogue, but the stage direction as well as the ‘feel’ (or perhaps you’d prefer to call it pacing?)

      That said, it’s almost impossible to get a sense of what, exactly, is in any script without reading the script itself, which I doubt anyone in the Academy did (Well, except for Francis Ford, maybe.) I guess you’re right about ‘Best Screenplay’ is really the ‘Cool Award’, since the only part of the screenplay one can expect to catch from the movie is the high concept. Lost in Translation’s high concept is really good. So, best screenplay it is.

      I also didn’t get into nepotism… the word hit my article three times, then was deleted. It’s tough. I doubt Sofia Copolla would be in the position to direct this movie if it wasn’t for her legacy, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t make a good movie. It still bugs me, but I assume it must bug her, too, so I guess we’re even.

      At times, though, it did feel like her own life experiences threatened to make Charlotte unlikable. Graduated from Yale, doesn’t need to work for a living and doesn’t know what to do with her life… Charlotte is the very poster child of ‘First World Problems’. But Charlotte is aware that she’s mean, and fears that she can come off as snotty. She’s self-aware of her unlikability, which oddly makes her likable.

    • jmgariepy says:

      Oh, and by the by, I would love to see your reaction after taking on the five movie challenge. I get the impression that the challenge has more value coming from someone who would normally refuse to do it.

      That said, I completely understand why the idea would sound repulsive to you. May I make a suggestion? Perhaps you can convince Matt that seven nights of watching the same auteur makes for a similarly intriguing challenge? Instead of watching the same movie for seven nights in a row, you’d be watching a different movie from the same director for seven nights in a row, in order to get a more complete understanding of that director. It’s not the same challenge, but it might keep Matt from having one over on you.

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