-
-
Each year, I am asking the same question: what are the things we learned from this year’s Oscars?
So I will start with my thoughts…
Not exactly is this something I have just learned, but definetely – after actually watching all the nominated movies – the Oscars’ outcome in Live Action Short, Documentary Short Subject or Documentary Feature reminded me that the voters vote after failing to see all the nominated movies – they vote for the most popular one, taking unartistic and unsubstantive issues into account (like „we heard Two Distant Strangers is BLM’ relevant, so we need to vote for this to show we support the movement” OR „Michael Giacchino’s brother is a filmmaker behind this doc with Holocaust tag all over it. more reasons to vote for it”).
Shorts and Documentaries should not be judged by members-at-large, as the results are pretty laughable… but this probably can be said by some of you about other categories 😉
But, I really do think that voting system needs to be changed somehow. in 50% public vote and in 50% craft committe vote? dunno…Another matter – BAFTAs… I do not think they are that good indicators as who may win, as some of people here try to point all of a sudden… Of course, they have „better years” and „worse years”. Some of their choices are really inspired like Riva over Lawrence in Best Actress, Rourke over Penn in Best Actor, but some of their choices are exactly the opposite like Lawrence over N’yongo in Best Supporting Actress, Patel over Ali in Best Supporting Actor, Lion over Moonlight in Best Adapted Screenplay… Some of those translates into the Oscar outcome, some do not…
We knew it, since a couple of years actually, that BAFTA voters love awarding their Brits having good-to-great achievements and with jury system instated this year in some categories – their choices seemed more “narrow” to me…
We also knew that AMPAS voters, while having problems with their own choices regarding “who to vote for” (‘cause they didn’t watch enough movies to judge by themselves?), usually were looking at BAFTAs outcome and were just copying their choices…
This season was exceptionally long, so I thought that maybe this would lead to Oscar voters actually watching all the nominated movies and then voting, but after reading what one of the secret Oscar voter mentioned (that some of the voters watch only Best Picture nominees and sometimes other movies nominated outside this category, so they vote for what they saw from BP lineup or they vote for who they know, who they like or who won what precursors), it seems nothing changed.
I agree with something that someone on this forum mentioned, that if the awards season was shorter probably Boseman would win for Best Actor… and if the season was longer last year – 1917 could have actually won over Parasite… we will never knew 😉What are your thought? What have you learned from this year’s Oscars or what „lessons learned” helped you predict below categories with the right outcome?
Best Actress
I wonder what would happen if Day and/or Davis and/or Mulligan contended at BAFTAs… would there be different choice to copy by AMPAS voters…Best Actor
I loved Hopkins in The Father and I loved this movie (my 3rd on preferential ballot), but I think Boseman totally deserved it. I wonder if the frontrunner status hurt him in the end, along with a long season…Best Adapted Screenplay
The Father was amazing as a drama that felt like a thriller. This category produces some quite surprising winnners all the time (Sling Blade over The English Patient, The Pianist over The Hours, Precious over Up in the Air) but when was the last time that predicted Picture winner with any real chances here – lost?Best Cinematography
I totally dismissed Mank in this category as Schindler’s List and Roma actually won BAFTA, LAFCA, NYFCA, NSoFCA, BSoFCA, DFWFCA to show its b&w cinematography strength to win here and ASC loves b&w movies too much (TMWWT, TWR, CW) nad what is funny – both Schindler’s List and Roma lost ASC to other contenders 😉
Can you please post some shot from Mank that actually deserved this Oscar?Best Film Editing & Sound
BAFTA stats prevailed once again 😉Best Original Song
I didn’t have the balls to predict it as I felt this song was totally forgettable… maybe Speak Now, Husavik & Io Si splitted votes here?Best Documentary Feature
This was the most mediocre nominee here… There were much better and more important documentaries nominated… The winning filmmaker said that this doc was about forming friendship between this guy and octopus… yeah, that’s why as a good friend he didn’t defend octopus from sharks to let the action happen in this doc 😉Best Documentary Short
a terrible choice. I didn’t know Michael Giacchino’s brother was behind it… I guess due to the fact A Love Song for Latasha & A Concerto Is a Conversation were main contenders fighting for this award between black block of voters and Do Not Split & Hunger Ward were main contenders fightng for this award between „serious” block of voters, Collette manager to slip here for the win thanks to „Holocaust” tag & visibility of the filmmaker?Best Live Action Short
Reply
this was just awful. I miss those years when I predicted those Oscar shorts without watching them – I succeeded more 😉 And I guess most Oscar voters do not watch them either 😉- Nomadland was always undeniable despite its surprising losses in Cinematography, Screenplay, and Editing.
- Frances McDormand is a powerhouse and a force to be reckoned with.
- Like I said before, Oscars voters should not rely on what they think other people are voting for. This was definitely how Hopkins prevailed over Boseman.
- Youn Yuh-jung is the best person in the world (I think we knew that already though.)
- Steven Soderbergh should not be allowed to produce live events.
- Do NOT order events based on what you think is going to win! This backfired so badly!
- Despite its early stumbles, The Father‘s surprise wins shows that a late release with a lot of anticipation can pay off, even if you bungle the screeners.
- The Academy clearly still has a bias against leading performances by Black performers. In a year where Boseman was expected to easily win, and Viola Davis was a real contender for Actress, neither won.
- Everyone likes H.E.R. apparently.
- Netflix bias is still around, or else Trial would have won something and Ma Rainey would have done better.
- Thomas Vinterberg is a really cool dude.
- Just because we had a weird year this year doesn’t mean we need a weird ceremony. Yeah it was shot nicely, but it was just so awkward where it tried to be intimate.
- The Academy loves Holocaust stuff and we should have seen Colette‘s win from a mile away.
- Do not make ten minutes of fluff when the setting is already awkward. Only Glenn Close could save that fire-dumpster of a segment and even then “Da Butt” only proved just how weird those three and a half hours were.
ReplyCopy URLFYC: Minari for Everything
What we learned:
Don’t change the awards order just because media and social media convinced you that X was a sure-fire winner. If you didn’t change the order for Finney and Ledger, no reason to do it for Boseman.
Don’t build your ceremony for a payoff that isn’t conformed especially after last-year’s upset in Director. See above.
Don’t put yourself above the nominees. This change was a calssic case of overconfidence about how smart/foresighted the showrunners would look rather than about honoring the nominees and winners.
It is time to put “X won’t win cause X already has an award/won recently” and “they won’t give X the third before they give Streep the fourth” to rest. If anyone thinks like that, that gotta be a very small number of people.
Performance trumps sympathy/sentimentality/politics and above mentioned pretzel logic why X won’t win. In the end of the day, who they like the best wins.
AFTRA is an albatros around SAG neck. They vote the way twitter would which does not necessarily reflect how AMPAS voters think.
If you are to build your narrative off a socio-political climate/movement, you have to be prepared that your narrative will peak when the climate/movement does and decline when climate/movement does. Trends get replaced by other trends. What’s zeitgeisty in August and September may be passe in March and April.
ReplyCopy URL
This post was found to be inappropriate by the moderators and has been removed.That Meryl Streep’s 21 nominations pales to Frances McDormand’s 4 statuettes.
Even if they came from the same university, their body of work are so different. I know why The AMPAS loves Fran. She’s not trying too hard to make each character different, but at the end of the day, the result is the same with Meryl. We associate them with their skill, not their particular character or their physical appearance. Meryl pushed it up to her edge, but Fran didn’t do that. Every character that she played were so realistic, and while it felt like she played the same, she changed the core entirely for each character, so when it came to analysis, we ended up having very different character. She did what Meryl did, but without the changing of genre, clothes, accent or face. She’s truly one of the best. Three crown of acting, three Oscars, what else? I finally understand why Emma Corrin loves her so dearly.
ReplyCopy URL"The Lost Daughter" in every eligible category - Film
"Succession" Season 3 in every eligible category - TV
"Heaux Tales" by Jasmine Sullivan in every eligible category - Music
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
