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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

20 Weeks – The Search For Meaning

Please note that this column was written and posted before this morning’s Globes noms… and I feel no need to change a word. Likewise, the coilumns were posted before nominations… the only adjustment was to add a “GG” notation on the nominees and to add the Oscar-impossible noms at the bottom of each list.
The Golden Globe Nominations mean nothing.
Nothing.
Okay

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25 Responses to “20 Weeks – The Search For Meaning”

  1. EDouglas says:

    Can’t wait for the “SAG awards mean nothing”, “DGAs mean nothing” and of course, “Oscar nominations mean nothing” columns. 🙂

  2. David Poland says:

    SAG and DGA don’t matter enough to rate full columns about not meaning anything.
    And as I wrote, The Oscars are all that matters. And many will be commenting here that, indeed, they don’t matter either.

  3. crazycris says:

    if they all mean nothing… then what the hell are we doing hanging out around here discussing them?!

  4. David Poland says:

    Fair question, Cris.

  5. right says:

    How come no one seems to be mentioning the fact that last year, with 10 slots, the Golden Globes only nominated TWO of the eventual oscar nominees, and missed the winner?
    How anyone can use them as any sort of Oscar barometer after that is beyond me.

  6. Devin Faraci says:

    Here’s my question: when does all of this cross from a love of movies and, by extension an interest in this horse race, to becoming nothing more than a fixation on guessing the winners? There are some people in this Oscar precog game that seem to have no actual interest in film – they just happened to find their way to this corner of the net. They could just as easily be off predicting cricket matches for all they care about the actual art.

  7. Joe Leydon says:

    Devin: Truer words have seldom been written.

  8. The Carpetmuncher says:

    Yeah, Devin’s got this right on.
    How can anyone say the Globes don’t mean anything? Are you saying that audiences don’t pay attention (they do)? Are you saying Hollywood doesn’t pay attention (it’s all anyone’s talking about today, including Poland)?
    The fact is, the only two movie awards most regular folks know are the Oscars and the Golden Globes.
    Maybe in the fuzzy math of picking Oscar winners the Globe isn’t always on the money, but they’re different awards, why should they be exactly the same? That’s inane thinking at best.
    The fact is, the Oscars seldom give their awards to the “best” films but rather the ones that Academy members like the best. Any organization that gives awards to films like CRASH, BRAVEHEART, and A BEAUTIFUL MIND are clearly not at the forefront of serious film lovers…I mean, those wins are a total joke. So was LORD OF THE RINGS winning. I know there are fanboys galore who think that film is the end-all, be-all, but Howard Hawks is rolling over in his grave right now…cartoons winning best picture? Ugh…
    But why do we still like to watch the Oscars? And the Globes? Is it just because we want to see who wins? Or because we want to see the movie stars we love and see what they’re wearing? I think I’m stuck in the middle…
    In the end, most journos seem to hate on the Globes mostly becuase of the small amount of journos who get to vote (the haters are clearly excluded from the club) and seethe with envy over not being the ones who get to choose which films and stars get to be feted for the night…whatever…
    The fact is, the Globes are fun…

  9. palmtree says:

    “They could just as easily be off predicting cricket matches for all they care about the actual art.”
    I’m not sure if I’d draw those lines so clearly. Even people who predict cricket matches have to know something about the sport, the people involved, and what makes a team good.
    In fashion, people are trying to find out what are the latest trends, the “in” designers, the must have accessories. Are they any less concerned with the art of fashion?

  10. jeffmcm says:

    Hang on, if ‘only the Oscars matter’, what do they matter for? To take this outside of the sporting comparison, is all of this ultimately to see who can raise their asking price from $3million per picture to $5 million? Who can get a meeting with David Geffen and who has to settle for an underling? What is the ultimate point of it all?

  11. palmtree says:

    It’s the highest honor in the profession given out by the most important society of filmmakers in the world. Prestige.

  12. jeffmcm says:

    …with a fairly poor track record for actually honoring the best work.

  13. Jeremy Smith says:

    An Oscar is a great deal of help to one’s career. Had he not won for AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN, Lou Gossett, Jr. could’ve lost the role of Chappy in IRON EAGLE to Yaphet Kotto.

  14. jeffmcm says:

    Nobody’s arguing that basic fact. I’m saying, is helping various actors/writers/whoever get pay bumps the reason why we’re all here commenting?

  15. palmtree says:

    “…with a fairly poor track record for actually honoring the best work.”
    Yeah, but the prestige remains.

  16. EDouglas says:

    Devin, this is the fun time where everyone has their predictions and they quickly get fucked up by the critics awards or the GG/BFCA nominations… and then surprises come up in the Oscar nominations… and then once in awhile, you have something come along like The Pianist that fucks everything up. I’ve been doing this for three years and I’m far from burnt out on this year’s race, because I do see a lot of exciting challenges in the weeks to come. Holy shit, but is this the most exciting year for foreign language films ever or what!? (Not sure why I’m swearing so much. I blame Sasha. )

  17. Jeremy Smith says:

    It’s like March Madness with fewer upsets, ho-hum effort and rampant point shaving.

  18. Sam says:

    It’s getting seriously old. Every bit of Oscar coverage here gets prefixed with “it doesn’t matter.” If it doesn’t matter, don’t cover it. I think the Oscar race is fun enough that it doesn’t matter if it matters. So decide if it’s worth covering or not and follow through with that.
    Assuming that the Oscar noms matter, it’s patently absurd to suggest that the guild noms are even less worthy of mention than the globes. In terms of be honored, who other than your own professional colleagues has greater authority to recognize great work? Actors know acting. If actors band together and award a great acting performance, that’s gotta carry far more weight than any other group of people doing the same thing. They matter.
    Two, if we’re speaking in terms of Oscar prognostication, it is also patently absurd to call the guild wars more irrelevant than the globes, to the point where they don’t even rate full columns explaining why they don’t matter. The guild awards have a far, far better track record at predicting Oscar than the globes ever thought of having. Hey, the DGA went five for five last year when virtually every other awards body counted Munich out. DP, I even recall you writing something about how Munich’s Oscar hopes were saved *by* the DGA noms. Now you’re saying the DGA doesn’t matter? Even the PGA and SAG, traditionally less predictive of Oscar than the DGA, do a better job than any other non-guild awards body other than probably the BFCA.
    So assuming the Oscar noms matter (and if they don’t, again, why are we covering it?), I cannot fathom one single reason why at least the DGA doesn’t also matter.

  19. David Poland says:

    I was being cranky, Sam.
    The Guild awards matter a lot to the people who participate.
    And as far as Oscar goes, they are an interesting precursor because there is a lot of cross-over voting.
    There are usually some misses, head to head. But yes, Guild awards matter more than HFPA. And they are a million times more honorable.

  20. EDouglas says:

    “But yes, Guild awards matter more than HFPA. And they are a million times more honorable.”
    I still don’t understand how/why after everything that’s been revealed about the HFPA and what they really are (the type of autograph and photo hunting press people that I’m fighting about over on Cinematical)… that people still take the Globes seriously. I think the main problem is that the rest of the press who post their nominations/awards make it seem like bigger deal than it is rather than like David and other Oscar pundits who always temper it with the facts/truth.
    And let’s not forget that the Academy has now two years in a row gone opposite the HFPA in terms of Best Pic and other categories. That’s not to say that a Dreamgirls or Babel win will kill their chances…

  21. Eric says:

    Any organization that went opposite the Academy last year in Best Picture can’t be all bad in my book.

  22. Me says:

    Having watched too many Golden Globes vs. Oscar ceremonies on tv, I will say this – from a pure entertainment value, the Golden Globes are a lot more fun, whether they mean anything or not.
    1. There are a lot more stars, but doesn’t feel as garish as the People’s Choice Awards.
    2. There are a lot more movies recognized because of the split.
    3. It’s cool to see tv get recognized, too. And unlike in movies, the GGs are a lot quicker at recognizing new interesting tv (Alias, 24, X-Files, etc.) long before the Emmys realize those shows are even on.
    4. Spontaneous moments, like Christine Lahti being in the bathroom and running to the stage. It’s great!

  23. Devin Faraci says:

    The Globes are better because there’s more booze.

  24. Joe Leydon says:

    Devin: And that’s a bad thing?

  25. The Carpetmuncher says:

    “The Globes are a lot more fun…”
    Hell yeah! That’s what journos got it twisted. Journos think the public cares about who voted, and what the process is. The public doesn’t even care about how we elect the goddamn President, for God’s sake. What the public loves is the Ceremony. And the Globes are a blast.
    Every time a journo derides the Globes by stating that they aren’t a good predictor of the actors, it just goes to show how far out of the mainstream most jounros are.
    Get a clue! Awards season is supposed to be fun! Stop with the hate!
    Still upset Gosling didn’t get a nod. I guess he’ll be getting nods for years and years to come, but I thought getting one now would have said something about the power of acting…

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon