DVDizzy.com

Wow, what an interesting list. I wouldn't have guessed Japan would be at the top. So much for China being this very important base the company needs to bow down to.

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Listening to most often lately:
Utada Hikaru ~ "Don't Think Twice"
Utada Hikaru ~ "Simple and Clean"
Ariana Grande ~ "test drive"

Yes. Disney actually doesn't need China, they just use them as an excuse to hide that they are in fact the Homophobes.

I think China is becoming less and less of a reliable market for Hollywood films. They're now spending more on creating massive-scale special effects blockbusters and even animated films, so American films are becoming less special. Last year, Avengers: Endgame and Hobbs & Shaw were the only Hollywood productions to make it into the top 10 top grossing movies in China.

I think Disney will continue to submit their movies for approval in China in the hopes something will strike a chord (like Coco did or several Marvel movies), but they shouldn't rely on them to push their movies over a billion. Heck, Warner Bros was able to score a billion dollar hit with Joker and that film didn't even receive a Chinese release. Rise of Skywalker is also on its way to reaching the billion dollar mark, despite making pitiful numbers in China.

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"There are two wolves and they are always fighting. One is darkness and despair. The other is light and hope. Which wolf wins? Whichever one you feed." - Casey Newton, Tomorrowland

Out of curiosity, are you referring to something to do with Star Wars? I remember seeing a couple headlines about a controversy with a gay kiss in the new Star Wars film, but I didn’t read it because I don’t watch those films. If you had a second, I’d love to understand what happened—especially if Disney’s obsession with kowtowing to socialist dictatorship China was involved?

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Listening to most often lately:
Utada Hikaru ~ "Don't Think Twice"
Utada Hikaru ~ "Simple and Clean"
Ariana Grande ~ "test drive"

China didn't even censor the lesbian kiss in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. That's how much of non-entity it was. It was censored in some Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern countries though.

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People had issues with the kiss being between two unnamed characters and I think Disney (apologists?) claimed that was because of China and that was easy for them to just edit that out, however, people also claimed they could have done it between two main characters (Finn and Poe) and edit that out as well and Disney (apologists) just use China as an excuse, Disney didn't do the kiss between named characters because of homophobes who probably wouldn't have bought merch of the characters if they had been gay.

Ah, got you. From what little I grasped, many people thought there were two male characters--who are also main characters (not sure if that's correct)?--that had chemistry and would've made more sense to have romance / a kiss, only for the creators to instead put together a "gay kiss moment" to get a pat on the back in the media using some random female characters in the background instead (similar to OUAT with Mulan and Ruby during the Underworld arc). It's always with female characters if it ever happens at all. This controversy sounds like something out of the '90s / '00s, when gay characters were still rare in mainstream TV / media, which makes it feel like we've gone back in time. With shows like the Shonda Rimes ABC block, for example, onscreen romance or sexuality between gay characters seemed pretty less hidden and obscure lately?

I don't know anything about Star Wars, but if the two male characters actually had chemistry together, it's a shame they didn't have the guts to go through with it. That's why I read fanfiction; sure, you have to sort through a lot of garbage to get to something good, but I see chemistry between certain characters all the time where romance is off-limits because of the anti-gay crowd in the audience. What's worse is when the female love interests are phoned in and bland.

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Listening to most often lately:
Utada Hikaru ~ "Don't Think Twice"
Utada Hikaru ~ "Simple and Clean"
Ariana Grande ~ "test drive"

You got that right.

OUAT even just hinted at Mulan but didn't go through with it. Instead they had Ruby kiss Dorothy (whose poor Aunt suffers forever and she has no idea about it) because my theory is that Disney didn't allow them to make Mulan a lesbian cause she's in the Disney Princess franchise.

It still bugs me an innocent, good, sweet person like Auntie Em has to suffer forever because of a stupid mistake.

I would think Once Upon a Time is too different a thing from the actual Disney characters for Disney to care about her being gay, but you may be right that Disney wouldn't let her be gay because of the Disney Princess franchise. I wonder if that's also the reason Disney said Rob Marshall, James Lapine, and Stephen Sondheim couldn't kill Rapunzel in Into the Woods (2014), because she was a Disney Princess.

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Aladdin has been nominated for two VES Awards.

Source: https://visualeffectssociety.com/press- ... -nominees/


Aladdin has been nominated for Best-Reviewed Kids & Family Movie at the Golden Tomato Awards 2019.

Source: https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/gu ... vies-2019/

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"Speechless" has been snubbed at the Oscars as well. It didn't win a single award during this entire awards season.

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I really don't want to be that guy.... but how the heck did that TS4 song get the nom over Speechless?!

I'd argue Speechless over Into the Unknown as well, but at least Unknown was memorable.

Also, no score nom makes me upset as well, even if I do think John Williams may get that as a lifetime achievement type of thing for Star Wars, bit like how Return of the King swept the board for the whole trilogy. I loved what Menken did with the score.

I feel ya. Aladdin didn't make the shortlist for score so a nomination was out of the question. I'm not sure if Disney even submitted it in that category since it wasn't mentioned in the the film's FYC webpage. I knew "Speechless" wouldn't make the cut after it was snubbed for both the Grammys and the Golden Globes but I still held some tiny bit of hope.

At this point, John Williams and Randy Newman just get courtesy nominations, regardless of the quality of their work. John Williams' work on Star Wars is plain and derivative and Randy Newman's work for Pixar is pain-inducing. But the Academy's music branch loves them so here we are. The only way this might change is if they opened up the nominations to the entire Academy which I don't see happening.

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Yeah, I don't think Disney even submitted it. Speechless seems almost like a token nomination for Menken rather than anything else. I don't think they pushed the film or song at all for consideration at any of the awards.

The Academy definitely have their favorites that's for sure. I mean, so do I, they just don't line up the Academy's these days

I'd love Menken to sweep score and song again one day, but it's going to need to be something special to do it.

Poor Speechless. The one consolation is that Beyonce's song wasn't nominated.

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We’re a dyad in the Force. Two that are one.
"I offered you my hand once. You wanted to take it." - Kylo Ren
"I did want to take your hand. Ben's hand." - Rey

I didn't have much hope it would be nominated, but it's a real shame. It really deserved at least the nomination in my opinion. I'm glad it was at least nominated for several other awards and made the Oscars shortlist, which is more than I expected at first.


It's true, I was also glad Spirit wasn't nominated. First, because I don't think it deserved the nomination, but also because I wouldn't have liked to see it getting it over Speechless.

I honestly am surprised they didn't nominate her song just to get a chance for her to show up and perform at the Oscar's. I'm glad they didn't stoop to that. They've done it in the past to boost ratings by nominating Johnny Depp or Angelina Jolie for some abysmal performances.

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We’re a dyad in the Force. Two that are one.
"I offered you my hand once. You wanted to take it." - Kylo Ren
"I did want to take your hand. Ben's hand." - Rey

I hope they never do that. The music branch makes some odd choices sometimes and has its favorites, but generally I tend to agree with most of their picks. I think they have better taste that other groups that give awards for songs, like for example, the Golden Globes.


Maybe they have done that in other categories, but in the song one many times they nominate songs from small films rather than from big artists. In fact, it has been a problem for the show's producers, who sometimes have taken the controversial decision of inviting other more famous artists to perform the nominated songs instead of the original ones. Perhaps the most infamous time that has happened is in 2004, when precisely Beyoncé sang three of the songs, and the winner sang a portion of his song instead of giving a speech as a form of revenge that he wasn't allowed to perform it in the show.

"Friend Like Me" has won Best Scene or Sequence in a Feature Film at the Advanced Imaging Society's Lumiere Awards 2019.

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The overuse of Beyonce in that ceremony is why I thought they'd want to bring her back here and give her the spotlight again, especially after how prominent Lady Gaga was last year (and rightfully so). I'm glad they didn't go that route.

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We’re a dyad in the Force. Two that are one.
"I offered you my hand once. You wanted to take it." - Kylo Ren
"I did want to take your hand. Ben's hand." - Rey