Why Films Don't Get Nominated
Analogies of this year’s higher profile films that seem set to miss Oscar BP noms to Dreamgirls are pretty off the mark and lazy, really. The media creates these waves and then attacks the movies for them, as though Atonement or Sweeney Todd or Dreamgirls actually did something terribly different in hyping than anyone else.
Dreamgirls (old song) did exactly three events that no one else did last year. None of these films did the blanket buying of ads that Universal traditionally does. None of these films showed their ass as generously as Searchlight has for its push films… which we all choose to perceive as underdogs. None of these films came and went in September and October, as so many do.
The fact remains that getting the “last film in” into the race has been the rarest trick of all in the years since the season was shortened by The Academy. This year, the late entries were Charlie Wilson’s War and Sweeney, with a delayed launch of Atonement after releasing it at the September fests. I wrote about it back in November, but whether fair or right, these films were fighting uphill because The First Season is really between Dec 2 and Dec 15… when every group but The Academy commits itself, whether by awards or by nominations.
If you are Steven Spielberg, Marty Scorsese, Clint Eastwood, the strategy works. If not, you are likely shit out of luck (with some very specific exceptions).
Why?
Because voters pay attention to these films regardless of any external forces. Critics groups and guilds didn
Maybe Atonement didn’t get nominated because it’s simply not a very good film.
Hotspur, that time-tested logic is crapola about 85% of the million times it’s used – for awards, box office, etc. If Atonement indeed fails to make the cut, does that mean it’s “simply” not as good as Chicago, The Cider House Rules, Chocolat, or any number of other mediocre nominees and/or winners from recent years?
“(And let’s not forget… the Oscar nominations are not out yet and almost always have surprises. Then again, notice how quietly the awards media has locked in Michael Clayton after writing it off for a month already… convenient amnesia.)”
What a fucking crock. I have had the film in my top five ever since the season began.
Wait, people aren’t allowed to change their minds about Michael Clayton? Was it “convenient amnesia” for you to backtrack on your classic blunder, “The Phantom of the Opera,” back in 2004?
Uh-oh, Kris. You went there.
Here comes the exasperated rebuttal…
1. 11/13
11/28
2. Is is “convenient amnesia” to remember only Phantom when I has the five ultimate nominees in my Top 6 by Dec 2 and the Top 5 by Dec 16, with M$B winning while others were bailing out because it lost The Globe? Just checking.
What’s not exasperating, Laz, is that people have to go back years to find a mistake that they think matters.
I actually just walked in the door from MICHAEL CLAYTON (they have movies in the morning here….I was the only non-geriatric in there) and man, that’s a very, very solid film. I could easily see it getting a BP nom as well as screenplay and director. I think someone said it earlier in one of these blogs….you just don’t see movies like that anymore.
Well David, I guess I could go back to 2006’s “Dreamgirls will win” extravaganza. Or even 2007’s “Johnny Depp will win” proclamation. But I’ll have to take your lead on what does and does not matter.
Oh come on Kris, it’s not like you haven’t made mistakes. It took you forever to put No Country on your list because you let your personal feelings cloud your judgment. But this is pointless. Everyone makes mistakes in this game because it’s trying to predict the future. If somebody is right in this game seventy-five percent of the time, then that’s amazing. You have been right an awful lot, but you’ve been wrong before too. The point is, let’s not harp on other people’s mistakes because you’ve all made them and I’m sure I have too.
A pissing match over who’s more right at making Oscar predictions? Really?
Just looked at the Guru list after weeks of resistance… and I can’t believe it, there are absolutely no culturally signifigant movies this year. Nothing outside of the critic/blogger/industry niche. The once almighty Oscars has been reduced to (gulp) a glorified critic’s group!
No wonder you blog guys are all grumpy. You’re one notch less relevant than the freakin’ Oscars.
I mean let’s stop and think about this… quality is so bad right now that A COEN BROTHERS MOVIE IS THE MAINSTREAM FRONTRUNNER.
That suggests that quality is pretty good, not bad. Not sure what you’re point is.
What are you talking about, Crow? A Coen Bros movie succeeding is a sign of poor quality? As for nothing being significant, No Country For Old Men asks us to look at a world that is going to hell in a handbasket and question whether we have the nerve to face it–do you even watch the news? Because it looks pretty relevant to me. That film winning Best Picture would be a spot-on zeitgeist pick as good as any other in the past.
I don’t know if ATONEMENT was overhyped. I do think it was crowned way too early, though, and it just isn’t strong enough to carry that level of expectation for so long.
Yes, but it was crowned by MEDIA. No one else had seen it.
Worse, it wasn’t even crowned, so much as put at the top of the list because the media hadn’t become believers in some of the other titles.
Circles inside of circles.
Well certainly on paper, Atonement looked like the biggest contender, with the exception of maybe American Gangster and Charlie Wilson’s War. Personally, I never had faith in the latter.
Worse than even that, David, it seemed to me that Atonement was anointed as “the frontrunner that would fail.” It was deemed the Dreamgirls before it even became the Dreamgirls, if you’ll excuse the use of a false analogy. The backlash was set on that movie well before anyone saw it.
I’m just getting really frustrated with people claiming Atonement is a bad movie FACT as if it hasn’t been praised up the wazoo by critics and audiences.
Aagh. It would piss me off even if I didn’t like the movie.
Atonement didn’t get nominated for an Oscar!?!? Holy shit… I must have been sleeping and overslept by two weeks and missed most of Sundance cause last time I checked, the nominations weren’t being announced until Jan 22 or 23rd!!!
Sure, it seems less likely with no guild nominations but stranger things have happened, too. Most of the guilds except the writers nominated Dreamgirls including director, SAG Ensemble and the editors (it won in the comedy/musical category) and it still didn’t get nominated for a BP, and there have been movies that have been snubbed by the three guilds and still got an Oscar BP nomination… like Letters from Iwo Jima. This was just last year, folks. Someone should figure out what percentage of those in the DGA, WGA and SAG nominating committee are actually members of the Academy cause that’s a much better way to determine what’s important and what matters.
Counting chickens before they hatch is a sure way of…over or underestimating how many chickens you’ll have to feed your hungry dinner guests.
The Thin Red Line was snubbed by most of the guilds too inc SAG, PGA and DGA. Can’t remember where I read that, but…
PetalumaFilms–you must have saw “Michael Clayton” at the Rialto in Santa Rosa. That theater with terrible parking that makes “Movies in the Morning” the only choice to catch a flick without parking blocks away for it.
I saw “There Will Be Blood” at the same theater Friday night, catching the last showing. Since they squeezed in four showings on one screen I was there early enough to see the evening crowd leave the auditorium. The looks on their faces were priceless, ranging from dazed to “Wow!” Only one person was speaking during the exit, remarking “That is exactly how it should have ended!” (Lucky for me, he didn’t go into detail.)
And “The Thin Red Line” was nominated by the DGA, the ACE and ASC.
“Atonement” did score an ASC nomination. I don’t think those nominations were discussed on this site. Others are…
“The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”
“No Country for Old Men”
“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”
“There Will Be Blood”
Roger Deakins competing against himself. Will he cancel himself out? Personally, Robert Elswit deserves it, hands down.