Welcome back, everyone! It might be a new year, but that doesn’t mean that the news train stops rolling… driving… grinding. What’s it called when a train… trains? ANYWAYS, it’s time for Deja News, the weekly article where I, ChrisContinues, talks about the news that happened last week. As always, feel free to tell me your thoughts on any story either down in the comments or over the Thinks of a Thoughter Facebook page.

Three Billboards Wins Best Drama

This morning on Twitter  (a great way to start off an article, I know but just stick with me, I promise, it gets better) I saw that someone made the statement that art isn’t meant to be compared to one another. This specific tweet was referring to 3 Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri winning the Golden Globe award for Best Drama Motion Picture over such films as Dunkirk and The Shape of Water. I’m not here today to tell you that one movie is better than the other or that people are wrong for saying Three Billboards is a bad movie. Instead, I’m here today to say that the tweet I saw this morning is utter crap. Yes, I know that taking a hard stance against someone’s tweet is a very brave thing to do in 2018, but I’m not looking for compliments.  Instead, I only seek your time so that I may explain why when Three Billboards or movies like it win at big awards shows it’s actually bad for the movie that wins.

First off, why is it crap to say that art isn’t meant to be compared to one another? Because if that was actually the case, we wouldn’t want scores at the end of reviews and when people said they don’t care about the upcoming award show, they would actually mean it. Art is meant to be compared because people (not all, some do it for the love of blah blah blah) create art to be the best. At least the people that are creating the kind of art that wins awards like a Golden Globe or an Oscar. Those people, despite whatever they might say after they win, want to win. While it’s true that it’s an honor to be nominated, you can only be a bridesmaid so many times before you start to wonder if what you do is good enough.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s talk about why the real reason people should be frustrated that a movie like Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri won. Now that Three Billboards has won the Golden Globe for Best Drama, it puts the movie in a spotlight that it shouldn’t be in. Because it won, people that watched the film and said it was “good” are now going to go back and examine the film on a level that they wouldn’t have otherwise. I personally thought Three Billboards was a really good movie, but it has some glaring issues and it’s those specifics issues that are going to result in a backlash that, quite frankly, this movie doesn’t deserve.

Crash over Brokeback Moutain, Forrest Gump over Pulp Fiction, and Shakespeare in Love over Saving Private Ryan are three very famous examples of movies that have won Oscars over other movies that they clearly shouldn’t have. Until the end of time, Crash will forever be criticized in such a way that it would have never been criticized had it not beaten Brokeback Mountain. Because of the current racial climate we live in today, there’s actually an alternate universe somewhere out there where Crash is spoken of in high regard because of the message it tries to convey. At worst, critics would say that Crash was a film that tried to talk about race relations and while admirable, fell short of its ultimate goal. Because it won an award when it shouldn’t have. Worst. Movie. Ever.

Obviously, we’re not quite there with Three Billboards, but if somehow it picked up enough steam between now and the Oscars to walk away with this year’s Best Picture award, the pitchforks will be out in full. Maybe if I had a dog in the race, I’d be more interested in beating up this movie with the rest of the internet but since Coco and Blade Runner 2049 isn’t going to be nominated for Best Picture at this year’s Oscars, I think it’s more important to remember that it’s not Three Billboards fault that it won Best Drama. It’s the studio that paid off the Hollywood Foreign Press’ fault… what? Only kidding of course, but it is important to remember that while it’s perfectly okay to compare one film to another, you should always ask the question, is this film even being asked to be compared. Just because the Golden Globes says Three Billboards is better than Dunkirk doesn’t mean that conversation is actually worth having. After all, The Golden Globes is the award show that said Atonement was the best drama the same year that Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men, and There Will Be Blood all came out. Sometimes, they’re just wrong and it’s okay to admit that.

Game Informer covers God of War 4… God of W4r? Nevermind.

The talented folks over at Game Informer recently revealed that their latest cover story is the upcoming PlayStation exclusive, God of War. I’ve never really been a fan of the God of War franchise but after learning that Secret Thoughter M was really looking forward to the upcoming game, I decided to spend a little time with GI’s coverage and I can definitely say that I’m a lot more interested than I originally was. There’s still no official release date for God of War. As of now, all we know is that it’ll be coming out sometime in 2018. Until then, maybe I’ll pick up God of War 3 and see what all the fuss is about. Game Informer gave it a 10 back in the day and Secret Thoughter M recently couldn’t stop praising it. If you’re like me and the fence about the upcoming God of War, you should check out Game Informer’s coverage, it might just sway you. Of course, if you’re a God of War fan and haven’t picked up the magazine or seen any of their coverage online, you’re missing out. Just to give you a taste of what they’ve been working on, here’s a fun video the crew does for every cover story that has a nice mixture of humor and content that fans might be curious about.