In case you somehow haven’t noticed, Netflix has Hollywood on high alert. The streaming media giant has gone from just offering binge-worth TV series to a becoming a proper power player in the feature film business as they drew in high profile projects from some of the world’s top filmmakers and actors.
Despite this though, there are some old guard members who feel that feature films belong only in a cinema and not a lounge, and thus have given Netflix a hard time of it. Most famously and recently, acclaimed South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-Ho’s Okja drew the ire of the judges at the Sundance film festival.
Netflix has not let this reticence to change stand in the way of their ambitions though. While half a theatre was busy booing Okja at Sundance, Netflix was busy spending their time – and most importantly, $12.5 million of their money – to procure upcoming star-studded drama Mudbound from director Dee Rees (Pariah) as their vehicle for no less than Best Picture Oscar contention.
Starring Carey Mulligan, Jason Clarke, Garrett Hedlund, Jason Mitchell, and Mary J. Blige, Mudbound is an adaptation of Hilary Jordan’s best-selling 2008 novel about two families’ struggle with poverty and prejudice in post-WWII America. The film received a mountain of praise when it debuted at Sundance, most notably for the cast’s performances as well as Rees’ ability to wrangle the novel’s complex narrative – it boasts six different narrators – on to the screen in ways that’re not only logical, but apparently damn good.
And now we can get our own first look at Mudbound thanks to the first trailer which was released by Netflix yesterday. Check it out below.
Laura McAllan is trying to raise her children on her husband’s Mississippi Delta farm, a place she finds foreign and frightening. In the midst of the family’s struggles, two young men return from the war to work the land. Jamie McAllan, Laura’s brother-in-law, is everything her husband is not – charming and handsome, but he is haunted by his memories of combat. Ronsel Jackson, eldest son of the black sharecroppers who live on the McAllan farm, now battles the prejudice in the Jim Crow South.
Mudbound is scheduled to premiere on Netflix on November 17, 2017.
Last Updated: September 7, 2017
Matthew Holliday
September 7, 2017 at 10:01
Poverty, prejudice and reference to world war II?
Thats a good recipe for an oscar in todays political climate.
I dislike it when movies are designed to tick all the boxes purely to win oscars.
I understand why Netflix wants to do it, but I find doing movies this way, the desire to win, demeans the significance of the movie. It overshadows the passion and desire to tell a story.
Original Heretic
September 7, 2017 at 10:10
I would agree that sometimes it does seem as if filmmakers are deliberately trying to do that, but one cannot make the assumption that it’s always the case.
For example, a movie like Schindler’s List, it also ticks all those boxes, but it was one hell of a passion project for Spielberg. Winning the Oscar for it was probably just an added bonus, not the final goal.
Matthew Holliday
September 7, 2017 at 11:51
We need more movies like that.
The bonus oscar is exactly what Im talking about, passion led to the oscar, not the desire to win.
Look at recent winners, Dallas buyers club, 12 years a slave, moonlight, argo etc.
All fabulous films, but all of them felt like they were just ticking boxes.
I miss performances designed around the performance.
Stuff like Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, staring at a business card.
Lucky number slevin, taking a full scene to tell us about the Kansas shuffle, without hinting at all as to the meaning of the scene.
Inglorious bastards, Landa talking about the Jews, the entire purpose of that scene setting up the end, with zero hints.
Theres a subtlety missing from films recently.
I think the only surprise in recent years has been Birdman. Where the social commentary wasnt smacking you in the face constantly.
Kervyn Cloete
September 7, 2017 at 15:00
Maybe it’s because I just watch a lot of movies, but I’m going to say that’s a bit of a gross generalization. Yes there are blatant Oscar bait movies, but so many who get that recognition are just great movies.
Off the top of my head, I can point to Whiplash, Django Unchained, Captain Phillips, Arrival, The Big Short, Gravity, Imitation Game, Wolf of Wall Street, etc. Those are all recent, all Oscar nominees/winners, and all great. And there are plenty that I’m not remembering now.
Matthew Holliday
September 7, 2017 at 18:21
Obviously Im generalizing. Im targeting movies that are created around winning.
That is the entire crux of everything Im saying, I dislike the “oscar by numbers” approach.
There are too many categories for every winner to be oscar bait.
That said, most of the ones you mentioned, good movies, but pretty linear story telling.
I understand not all movies can take that approach, but it feels like we’ve had far too few movies that werent so horse and cart-ish.
But I still dont feel like Im entirely wrong about the lack of subtlety.
Valerian world building was pretty great, but its no 5th element.
Hacksaw ridge was supposed to be this generations Saving Private Ryan, but it just wasnt (for all the hype, I just didnt feel it. It felt like it parodied non-combatants to over sensationalize it for media)
Even wonder woman, for its strong female superhero women rights stuff, felt like it was missing just that little something.
RinceThis
September 7, 2017 at 16:04
Why was Okja booed? Other than being crap of course…