We have gathered here today to discuss not the artistic merits of this year’s Academy Award nominees for best picture (that’s this way), but the controversies, firestorms and outright debacles that cling to them like dog hair to a dropped Tootsie Pop.
Conveniently (and infallibly) labeled for the conscientious consumer, this is your guide to Oscar beef — from extra spicy to mild.
‘Bohemian Rhapsody’
The debate: The long-awaited (some say cursed) Queen biopic is a surprise international smash. Given all the good will toward the band, and Rami Malek, who plays Freddie Mercury, that might have been enough to make it a populist cause célèbre, despite middling reviews from critics. But trouble started before the movie even wrapped.
With two weeks of filming left to go, the director Bryan Singer was fired for what the studio said were unexplained absences. Later, a man filed a lawsuit accusing Singer of sexually assaulting him at a yacht party in 2003. (Singer denied the allegations.) And, in January, The Atlantic published the accounts of four others who said Singer had sex with them when they were underage. The director called the article a “homophobic smear piece,” but in response Bafta removed Singer as a nominee, and GLAAD rescinded a nomination for the film.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/21/movies/oscar-controversies.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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