Uh… not really…
I always find it sad when the smarter awards groups push to be first like it matters.
In 5 years of giving a Best Feature award, the first two years’ winners were Oscar nominated… the last three years were not. Make of it what you will.
Anyway…
The 19th Annual Gotham Independent Film Award
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Review: Little Women (no spoilers)
Why You Should Be Afraid Of The End Of The Paramount Decree
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Review: Marriage Story (spoilers only in the broadest sense)
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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
Where’s Lex at? Why hasn’t he been unbanned yet? It’s just not the same around here.
I don’t see any honorees on here that look like the Gotham Awards are trying to be an Oscar indicator. Maybe they’re trying to give awards to the best work? Hard to believe, I know.
Gotham INDEPENDENT FILM Awards…
DP, are you saying you want the Gothams to work harder to play the Oscar-prediction game? Don’t you hate that game?
While I personally like the Gotham awards and think they tend to make good, interesting choices, I think Dave’s point is why do the announce the awards so early if they’re not playing the Oscar game? Why not wait until (shocker) the end of the year?
And to answer my own devil’s advocate questions, I think it is because they do want to influence the awards to consider some titles that might and often do get lost come Oscar time. The fact that they don’t make enough impact does make that a questionable decision, though.
“It starts here”
Could it be any more overt, Eric.
They aren’t trying to be an indicator…no one is… they are trying to appear to be an influence… or to even actually be one.
The hypocrisy of all these groups that claim to be above it who then jostle for position with legs spread wider than the Golden Globes Of Fuck Me I’m (Enter Country Here) is overwhelming.
Yes… Gothams seem to want to reach higher. But don’t forget… “it starts here.”
The truth is, this particular battle is with Film Independent more than with Oscar. But even in a season with the Oscars in March, the ONLY high-profile awards-giving body other than Oscar that will be voting with less than 2 weeks to go before the end of the year (“there are too many movies!!!! Let’s vote earlier!) is National Society of Film Critics.
Do we really need to be defining the year in a hurry, trying to be first, trying to find an audience for these things that is bigger than our well-established niches, not really just celebrating?
Where does it say “It starts here?”
If that’s going to be the basis for criticism for a press release you’re going to partially reprint, you really need to include it in your post, or at least link to the whole thing. What you did reprint is totally innocuous.
Ah, I pulled out my microscope and saw it in the image. My mistake. Even after seeing it, though, it’s so vague that it be taken any way you want.
Moreover, my earlier point stands: if this group had any interest in influencing or being seen as influencing the Oscars, these are not the honorees they would have picked.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, sometimes an award is just an award.