Lousy Friend

"Nick, the media comments in the past few days have turned in a direction that is beneficial to us." Sitting in the Enigma company, Michael looked at the comments on the major magazines, knocked on the comment articles, and turned to Levi. He said, "Now, these media are all speaking for us."

Just a few days ago, Levi's rebuttal was published in the media. The media always likes to tell darker stories. The curator of the museum said that there were no agents who rebelled. These are all false. Although the story is said to be darker than the movie, Levi's rebuttal is equally powerful: Will the information really be recorded? Your East German government has a poor record in this regard...

This kind of question is darker than what the museum director said, and it quickly occupied the media's space. And this resulted in The Lives of Others and Good Will Hunting starting a head-on confrontation, and the two films also began to compete for Best Screenplay at Oscar.

And this competition quickly attracted a lot of people's attention.

"I have to say that this year's Best Screenplay competition is very interesting. The two people who are most likely to win the award are both first-time screenwriters. As an actor, this is the first time for Matt Damon to write a screenplay, and as a screenwriter of a TV series, this is also the first time Levi has participated in the competition for the best Screenplay of a movie. The Lives of Others and Good Will Hunting are the two most popular movies, and it may also be the only opportunity where Matt Damon can win the award."

The media's statement is quite reasonable: don't say anything else, just look at the nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Drama Film: Peter Fonda, Kevin Spacey, Daniel Day-Lewis, Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon. All these actors are the top actors, and Matt Damon has no chance of winning if he competes with them. Kevin Spacey and Day-Lewis are not on the same level as him among those few people. Even Peter Fonda has decades of drama skills, and even Leonardo has a Golden Bear Award. It is an almost impossible task for those who want to compete and win those awards.

Therefore, if he wants to win an award, he can only compete for the best Screenplay—this is what the media is paying attention to now because compared to the fact that The Titanic has almost locked the film and director, the competition for the best Screenplay is still not so sure.

It's just that the bias of the media that Michael said was revealed at this time.

"Among the best drama films this year, Titanic, L.A. Confidential, and The Lives of Others are the three most popular films. Among the best comedy films, As Good as It Gets and The Full Monty are the films most likely to win; these few films are all noteworthy."

There is no controversy about the candidates for the best director, and the best actor winner of the Golden Globe Awards is divided into drama and comedy. It is estimated that Kevin Spacey and Jack Nicholson will win each other respectively, and then, after winning the Screen Actors Guild Award, they will be able to determine who wins the Oscar. As for the prediction of the best movie, the most likely nominations given by the media are five movies, which is quite interesting: Titanic, L.A. Confidential, The Lives of Others, As Good as It Gets, and The Full Monty.

Because Oscar nominations are not separated, the five films mentioned here will likely be nominated for Oscars.

However, the competition for the best screenwriter is now the final suspense. At this time, the media predicts that the movie The Lives of Others is more likely to be nominated for an Oscar. It is undoubtedly to promote that The Lives of Others is more likely to be the winner of the Best Screenplay.

This is quite normal: evaluating these two films will be difficult no matter who it is. One is an in-depth movie that touches on social issues, and the other is an inspirational movie that portrays geniuses' psychological problems. These two movies are already better than all the other movies for Best Screenplay.

Such a thing no one knows.

An inspirational film like Good Will Hunting which portrays individuals is indeed easy to be loved by people, and it is easy to get a good box office. Compared with movies that have depth and realistically reflect social issues, they are naturally not as good in word of mouth.

"Bruce is still very capable of doing these things." Levi praised this. People often say that there is specialization in the art industry, which is true. If you want to promote a movie, Bruce is the best candidate, "However, don't be too optimistic. You know, the media's promotion is only part of it. But Weinstein has never been an easy guy to deal with."

Weinstein has an extremely unique ability in public relations issues, and it can even be said that he is the person who understands public relations best in Hollywood. Although the film critics are quite inclined towards Levi, they don't want to offend him. Even if Levi has Bruce's help, winning is not easy.

The stalemate between The Lives of Others and Good Will Hunting went on like this. Weinstein is richer, knows how to publicize better, and has excellent skills, but Levi is not inferior in the media. With the bias of the critics' crowd, Levi's films have always been on par with his.

"Maybe until the last moment, we really can't tell who will get the Best Screenwriter." Michael shrugged and said.

"Of course, I think, unless there is a particularly big change, it is impossible to have a result in a short time."

Levi was not in a hurry, and Michael knew that he was just fighting against Weinstein. He sat there, bored, flipping through the magazine in front of him. He wanted to see what people said in other magazines.

However, when a piece of news caught his eye in a magazine, he was stunned.

"Nick, maybe something has changed: listen to this piece of news: I don't care what film critics say." Michael read the piece of news directly, and his voice immediately attracted Levi's attention, "I don't shoot movies for critics; who cares what they say? I shoot movies for audiences, and what those critics say is just bullshit."

"Who said that ?" Levi asked in surprise. It's not easy for someone to say these things during the awards season.

"Ben Affleck said it." Michael laughed, "The screenwriter of Good Will Hunting. He said it when he was asked what he thought of the critics' accusations." Hearing that Ben Affleck said something like this, Levi was also extremely surprised: Even in Levi's memory, he has a super big mouth, but it is still too extreme to say this.

This person has always been a person who has no control over his mouth. In Levi's memory, he publicly declared that he didn't care about blowing men for performance opportunities, which suddenly angered many directors who had worked with him.

It's just that he didn't expect they would be caught up by themselves.

On the eve of the film awards season, he said everything the film critics said was bullshit? Levi really admired such a feat. Indeed, there are some people in Hollywood who have a bad temper, and when they are repeatedly insulted by film critics, they may say that they don't care about film critics. However, most of those people are directors of commercial films and don't care about awards in the first place. But as an actor competing for awards, what on earth was he thinking to offend film critics at this time?

Just because the film critic said a few words, he scolded like this? This is just a death wish! He was able to sway the Original Screenwriter as soon as he opened his mouth. Although there is a bias between the two films, the critics also said a lot of good things about "Good Will Hunting."

Ben Affleck's words are really amazing.

"Now it's interesting." Levi raised his eyebrows.

It's really interesting. Ben Affleck's sudden words suddenly changed the whole situation. Initially, this competition was nothing more than a contest between Levi and Weinstein, but after Affleck finished speaking, all the film critics were angry about it. And soon, new comments appeared immediately.

"In Good Will Hunting, the words that Robin Williams used to persuade Matt Damon were completely illogical. His persuasive language was so weak that it couldn't convince even a genius, let alone a fool. This movie is only a story about a genius who picks up girls with some bright spots, and the other aspects are pale."

Soon, new comments from film critics were also published. Among these comments, Good Will Hunting's evaluation was very destructive. Compared with Weinstein's finding faults, they are obviously more professional. They don't target those who can be justified but directly blame the logic of the lines for not being strict enough. Such an approach is enough to make the film's evaluation plummet!

"A person like Ben Affleck, who has no acting skills and has facial paralysis, wins any award for a film, it is a huge harm to the film industry. If such an actor wins any award other than the golden raspberry, all film critics can't agree!"

At this time, the declaration of the film critics suddenly caused the support for Good Will Hunting to drop sharply.

Ben Affleck has messed with the wrong person—this is Levi's biggest thought, but he doesn't know what kind of mood Weinstein will feel when he meets such a lousy friend.

*****

Thanks and kudos for my patreons

Cherif Doghri

Adam LV

Danny York

Scott DePaepe

Dario Cameruccio

MMMCMXCIX, or 3,999

The Main Man.

Sandra Torres

You can read advanced chapters on my Patreon account: https://www.patreon.com/Sayonara816.