The Soloist
 

Trailer

Featuring Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Fox.

...I'm totally going to see this.

This looks like the biggest piece of Oscar Bait I have ever seen.

That being said, I cannot wait.

I liked this better the first time I saw it, except it was called Reign Over Me.

Wait a second, I didn't like that at all.

I liked this better the first time I saw it, except it was called Radio.

Wait a second, I didn't like that at all.

At least the trailer was slightly less horrendous than The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, yet another Oscar Bait picture. It's no less horrible since the trailer proceeds to show the entire movie, though I guess that's a blessing since I can't be fooled into thinking it might be decent.

I pretty much automatically hate anything with MYSTICAL MUSIC overlaid over the trailer, especially as overdone as that particular piece.

Reign Over Me technically couldn't be Oscar Bait since a video game was used as a plot point. That just automatically disqualifies you for an Oscar.

Look, just because it's about real people doesn't mean it's not a completely sappy, Oscar Baiting rendition of their "life", as if the trials and tribulations of real people are accompanied by uplifting music and "meaning". The tone of shit like this disgusts me, as well as it's focus on THE ONE SCHIZOPHRENIC MUSICIAN WHO MADE IT BIG whereas there are thousands of mentally ill homeless people who don't get a peep. Why not write a fictional story about one of those mentally ill homeless people who aren't musical prodigies and who have to live their daily life struggling for warmth and food and bare sustenance? It'd mean a whole lot more.

Like, Radio's about a real guy. And you know what? Fuck Radio. I'll hold judgment on this movie because hey, a trailer is like judging a book by its cover. But the cover so far seems to be a rehash of the same old "message" crap that people gobble up.

I'm sorry, what was that? It's just that I can't hear so well over these TRAGIC REMINDERS OF 9/11.

And honestly, it's hard to fault filmmakers for films like these. Making respectable, uplifting renditions of people's lives is probably one of the easier cinematic tasks and with virtually no downside. The only genre that's possibly easier to make is Holocaust movies, where you just need to have a bunch of melancholy people standing around in washed out grays to garner critical acclaim.*
Aww, be nice to Radio. Sure it was a terrible Oscar grab, but without it the full-retard discussion in Tropic Thunder wouldn't have been so great.


*Because I couldn't think up a good on-topic segue, let me take this opportunity to recommend Black Book, a movie set during WWII, featuring Jews and Nazis, but still remembering that movies are primarily meant to entertain.

Whoa, Whoa, Whoa...

Button is not Oscar Bait.

It's fucking awesome bait.

David Fincher, man!

Yeah, I know, they used a video game as symbolism of the twin towers collapse and also as Sandler overcoming his loss, but since video games cannot possibly be considered works of art ever by anybody anywhere, it automatically disqualifies Reign Over Me for an Oscar win. You may not realize this since the Academy only publishes these kinds of rules in their secret bylaws known only to the elite, but it's true.

Movies about the Holocaust, on the other hand, are automatically pushed into the top ten choice category for Best Picture, where at least one will make it into nomination. The only time this may not happen is if there are more than ten Holocaust movies in one year, in which case DVD copies of them are thrown into a black bag, shaken, and then subjected to extreme blunt force blows with a sledgehammer. Those copies surviving this elimination round are put into probable nomination status.

As for David Fincher, he is apparently 50/50 on whether or not a movie made by him will suck, since he has both Alien 3 AND Fight Club, Panic Room AND Zodiac under his belt. Plus anyone giving Brad Pitt even the possibility of screen time automatically goes down a peg in my book. Even Quentin Tarantino is going to get onto my shit list for putting him in Inglorious Bastards (supposedly, I mean, since every single actor in existence is supposedly going to be in Inglorious Bastards).

Yeah, but it's still hard to classify Fincher as Oscar Bait when his movies have never gone in that direction. I mean, even Zodiac, which ended up with No Coutnry and TWBB as the movies on the top of everyone's best of lists didn't get a single nomination.