Twittered By An Academy Member This Morning
where the hell are the screeners???!!!
This is one of the major events of this year’s awards season. Magnolia and Sony Classics have shipped. Everyone else… not yet.
And the same is pretty much true of the ad campaigns. Expect a big, fresh wave of ads this week and next. But studios large and small have been playing it very close to the fiscal vest this season so far.
The same is true with the last four big awards films to be seen. Nine junketed this last weekend because they had it planned months ago and they have a big cast of very busy actors. But everyone who saw the film – the soundtrack of which is still two weeks away from being done – including the HFPA, signed agreements not to review or every mention the film on social networking sites.
Avatar, no. Invictus, no. The Lovely Bones, no.
As usual, the one high-profile movie that is being long-lead screened, Sherlock Holmes, is suddenly getting odd awards buzz from the long-lead monkeys. There is even some new buzz around It’s Complicated.
Why hasn’t every member of The Academy had The Hurt Locker and District 9 and A Serious Man and Inglourious Basterds in their DVD players for weeks now? Not to mention long shots like Star Trek and The Hangover and The Informant!?
The reason is money, it seems… not so much as in no one spending as in studios hedging on their awards spending through a very scary corporate summer and preparing to lock-n-load just before Thanksgiving… some just before Christmas.
All of this is… well… interesting… if hard to analyze. Of the big new movies, you can be sure that Academy members will be drawn to Invictus and Avatar and Nine in a big way. The Lovely Bones may find it more challenging to get older viewers to the theaters (screening rooms and public) and could be very SAG-reliant to get it rolling.
But it may be that the long shots get longer as, literally, dozens of DVDs suddenly pile up on the doorstep next week.
Academy members should get off their old decrepit asses and get to the theaters to see the buzzworthy movies, at the very least.
I know this is not (entirely) related, but the Oscar website has some really nice clips of their Lifetime Achievement ceremony from the weekend. Very relaxed and a hint of what the crowd would be like if the Oscars themselves were a dinner do behind closed doors.
Caleb Deschanel was especially funny about Gordon Willis (giving hints as to why Willis had never been awarded before), and Ron Howard was great on the great, great Roger Corman.
dpoland wrote: Why hasn’t every member of The Academy had The Hurt Locker and District 9 and A Serious Man and Inglourious Basterds in their DVD players for weeks now? Not to mention long shots like Star Trek and The Hangover and The Informant!?”
These movies are far from inaccessible. What does it say about Academy members when they can’t even get off their collective butts to see some of the more yapped about films of the year? Some members are working, a lot, I got that, but what percentage are too busy to never see a film? Sure, there’s no requirement, (as far as I know), of members staying current with releases but there’s also no guarantee, (as far as I know), that studios and prod companies have to delivery a requisite number of dvd
Big Perm – Jinx! You posted before I had a chance to finish mine. How many would it take to get a quorum?
The effort to get voters, Academy and otherwise, is the #1 issue for awards season efforts. #2 is setting the tone for being award-worthy.
I would have been happy to see DVDs go altogether, but everyone went NUTS in response that year… critics even more than Academy folks. So waiting on the DVD is a part of the process now.
We can not like it… but we can’t wish the fact away either. Academy members do go see a lot of movies in theaters, including at Academy screenings. But I can promise you that 40% or more of Academy members, for instance, will see Precious on DVD and not in a theater… for better or for worse. Probably higher for Hurt Locker. And it’s probably about the same for A Serious Man.
As David has often said with regard to embargoes…it’s not the rules, it’s the consistency.
If one is led to believe every year that there will be timely screeners, time and screenings are budgeted accordingly.
If it’s nearly Thanksgiving, and the usual roster of stuff has not arrived as it should, without any kind of warning…that gives less time to see what has been missed…especially if it’s no longer in theaters and not on commercial DVD yet.
Before I was in LAFCA, I expected no screeners, and got on the ball early, which was difficult but doable. Nonetheless, I expect I missed some unexpected stuff. Last year I would never have seen BALLAST had it not been sent.
Oh, and…Sony Classics have shipped?
Never got ’em.
I hate to sound like an old crank, but for 60+ years, Academy members somehow managed to get their keisters to theatres and screenings (both of which they get into for free) and then vote. Watching a film at home is a horrible idea–too many distractions and interruptions, the likelihood of fast-forwarding through “dull” parts, the inability to properly judge crafts even on a big flat-screen, and of course, the lack of an audience response (especially crucial for comedies–in that rare case where one might actually garner some traction). I guarantee you that if the distribs unilaterally decided to stop with the screeners, these folks would suddenly find the time and energy to leave the house and view the films properly.
I’m with Cad. They can get off their asses, into the theatres, and see the films that way. A screener is a cheap way out. Nevertheless; everyone who wants to see some of those films on DVD has to wait til next month and January (Why Hurt Locker is not coming out til god damn January is beyond me). So you people can wait! WAIT I SAY!
i couldn’t agree more with cadavra
an academy member:
“where the hell are the screeners???!!!”
i hope that academy member who tweeted that was either veruca salt or under the age of 10, whereby he/she also chucked the phone across the room and fell to the floor to have a fist-beating-floor-stomping tanty. otherwise they sound like a spoiled twat
Guys….I’ve seen EVERY Oscar worthy movie that’s been released so far. Do you really, honestly think critics have lazily avoided seeing these films? That’s silly talk.
Screeners a re a HUGE help because after a year or more of seeing these films it’s imperative to sit with them again and figure out what the best options are. Sometimes movies you loved and gave a 5 star review to have lost some shine and sometimes stuff you weren’t that into seems much better. It’s got NOTHING to do with critics not going to the theaters.
Screeners are a collective action problem for the studios. If only one or two stop sending screeners, it only hurts those studios. All studios have to agree to stop before any action can take place. However, no agreement is likely to last, because the potential upside is so great that cheating (i.e. trying to be the only studio to send screeners) is too tempting to pass up.
I also realize that all was directed at Academy members…but press get screeners too and we have got very few thus far. I’m sure many Academy members have seen many of the films up for Oscar gold was my point as well…
dpoland wrote: Why hasn’t every member of The Academy had The Hurt Locker and District 9 and A Serious Man and Inglourious Basterds in their DVD players for weeks now? Not to mention long shots like Star Trek and The Hangover and The Informant!?”
For one very simple reason – they will all end up on bittorrent the moment they are mailed out. The Academy screeners for The Wrestler, Ben Button, Doubt, Slumdog Millionaire and Gran Torino (among others) were widely available online well before the Oscars last year.
montreal-
this years contenders are and have been on bit torrent since the Monday after their opening weekend. C’mon….duh….
Plus perfectly legitimate Italian DVD/Blu-rays of The Hurt Locker were out before Summit even gave it a theatrical bow.
Meanwhile, legitimate fans of cinema who would rather go to the movies than watch on a TV screen (or worse, an airplane screen) must wait for months on end!