Oscar Watch: 'Hateful Eight' goes over great with academy

Gold Standard: Oscar Watch: ‘Hateful Eight’ goes over great

Dec. 7, 2015 2:20 PM PT

Oscar Watch, charting the smiles, the frowns, the ups and downs of the awards season, comes to you every Monday from now through the end of February.

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'Hateful Eight' draws huge crowd at academy screening

Our applause meter is in the shop, so the science here is inexact. But judging by how many academy members showed up at the 1,000-seat Samuel L. Goldwyn Theater for screenings this weekend, Quentin Tarantino's "The Hateful Eight" would seem to have a leg up on its awards-season competitors.

About 800 people filled the Goldwyn on Sunday evening for the bladder-challenging, three-hour-plus road-show version of the movie, including the Ennio Morricone overture and 12-minute intermission. Tarantino and cast members Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell and Jennifer Jason Leigh added to the evening's length, participating in a post-screening Q&A. Academy members greeted them with a thunderous ovation.

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"It felt like an event," said a producer after the movie, "the kind of thing where you have to see it in a theater -- not streaming at home or on your phone. I think that's going to carry some weight with people, the idea that you have to give yourself over to this experience for three hours."

Another academy member offered a different take, calling said experience an "endurance test."

"Too violent, too indulgent and I didn't see the point of it all," she said. "Like, how many times do I need to see Jennifer Jason Leigh punched in the face? Two or three? Fine. Two or three dozen? No."

Edgar Ramirez, Jennifer Lawrence and Robert De Niro in "Joy."

'Joy' whiffs with critics

"Joy," filmmaker David O. Russell's latest collaboration with Jennifer Lawrence, also screened this weekend for the academy, drawing about half the number that went to see "The Hateful Eight."

Reactions from the academy members included words like "fun," "zippy" and "involving." Critics were less charmed. The reviews, which began to break Monday, have been middling compared with Russell's last three movies -- "The Fighter," "Silver Linings Playbook" and "American Hustle."

"Despite another solid performance from Jennifer Lawrence, anchoring Russell's sincerely felt tribute to the power of a woman's resolve in a man's world, it’s hard not to wish "Joy" were better, that its various winsome parts added up to more than a flyweight product that still feels stuck in the development stage," wrote Variety's Justin Chang.

"Joy" has yet to win any critics prizes. Lawrence did not receive one mention at Sunday's Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. vote -- and this is a group that casts a wide net. (John Cena received a vote for supporting actor.)

This photo provided by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Tom Hardy, as Max Rockatansky, in Warner Bros. Pictures' and Village Roadshow Pictures' action adventure film, "Mad Max:Fury Road."

Could George Miller be nominated for director?

Speaking of the LAFCA, George Miller won the group's director prize for the gonzo poetry he put up on screen in "Mad Max: Fury Road." The National Board of Review's band of anonymous voters also gave the movie its best picture prize last week.

Is there room in this year's director race for two AARPers (70-year-old Miller and "The Martian's" 78-year-old helmer, Ridley Scott) doing some of the best work on movies about heroes trying to survive a perilous future? Given the goodwill these two directors have accumulated over the course of their distinguished careers, need you ask?

With "The Martian" still in theaters, pundits have presumed, probably correctly, that Scott's movie enjoys the advantage of currency over "Mad Max," which opened in May. The critics' prizes help in that regard, both as a reminder and an endorsement that it's OK to vote for a great genre movie that's every bit as accomplished as more traditional academy fare such as "Spotlight" and "Bridge of Spies."

Email: [email protected] | Twitter: @glennwhipp

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