Academy Invites
A couple few things struck me about today’s list of new member invitations… though I must admit, my urge to scour the list is limited.
The single ugliest failure to invite is to screenwriters Armando Iannucci, Oren Moverman, and Alessandro Camon. These three did the kind of work last year that every serious filmgoer – however much you liked or didn’t like the specific movies – is constantly shouting about wanting to see in cinemas. And with all due respect to Kurtzman & Orci, who are a part of the commercial cinema in a very real way, I’m not sure their time needed to come at the expense of much more creatively ambitious writers. If this were a judgment call between the District 9 writers and the Star Trek writers, I could see the argument. But at a time when drama and comedy for adults is under siege, shouldn’t The Academy be celebrating the writers who have taken the much, much harder road with such success?
On the music side, Buck Sanders got left out after teaming with Marco Beltrami for Hurt Locker. But wait… I don’t think Marco Beltrami is a member either, after two Oscar nominations in 3 years. I don’t see him in invites for 2008 or 2009. Yet, somehow, the never nominated Brian Tyler, composer for 5 crap movies in 2009, is invited. Hmmm…
Also left out is Ryan Bingham, who won for The Weary Kind… but he isn’t really meaning to make a life in movies. On the other hand, it was a shock to realize that T-Bone Burnett is just now being invited after years of amazing work in films.
In Documentary, both Rick Goldsmith (The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pe0ntagon Papers) and Tia Lessin (Trouble the Water) have filmmaking partners. Where are their invites?
0It’s a VERY veteran year in Public Relations… some surprises in there of people not already in.
Nicolas Chartier became this year’s Bob Yari. But while that was not a surprise, it would have been nice to see Greg Shapiro grab a slot for Hurt Locker, amongst others (like the Harold & Kumar franchise… never a big hit theatrically, but still heading to its three-quel.) And of course, I assume that Ms Bigelow is already a member.
Hell, Moverman should have gotten in under Directing. (I’m guessing it doesn’t work that way, though).
I thought a nomination automatically guaranteed you membership. Am I wrong or did they change that?
Apparently even a freakin’ win doesn’t get you membership, as they’re just now inviting Academy Award winners Jon Landau and Davis Guggenheim, among others.
I am amazed that Sandler is only getting an ask now even though less established people like Cera and Jane Lynch are already members.
Sandler; my first question exactly. How is it that he is only asked now after what a decade and a half of hit after hit and employing mutltitudes of people as a producer (and I am not even a fan) but Zoe Saldana, really just a Maxim eye candy babe who hit the jackpot and had a good year is asked so soon?
What is the process?
Its also funny that the two films listed are his ‘respectible’ roles of Funny People and Punch Drunk Love.
Obviously there’s a snob factor working against Sandler, and probably Zoe Saldana could have waited a bit longer, but it’s not really fair to call her ‘Maxim eye candy’ since she was (in my opinion) the best things in Star Trek and Avatar, should have gotten an Oscar nomination last year, has been around for a solid decade, and can’t even be considered ‘eye candy’ since she didn’t actually appear on-screen in Avatar.
Calling her the best things in Star Trek and Avatar is not really justification for invitation to the Academy.
She is barely in Star Trek. What Saldana does in Avatar is far less complex than the work that say Milla Jovovich does in The Fifth Element and I would be willing to bet Jovovich is not part of the Academy. And she has been around for much longer than a decade in headlining and name roles. Saldana’s “decade” is a lot of crap and bit roles until the past few years.
Until I see more, I cannot catagorize Saldana as more than a Maxim girl made good. Is Rebecca Romijn a member? Famke Janssen? All are far more accomplished.
Not trying to pick on Saldana, but if I were Sandler, who is technically one of the most successful producers in Hollywood, a star who rarely has a misfire and employs countless people year after year with a legitimate production house (as opposed to a vanity label), I would greet this day with mixed enthusiasm.
Again, it underscores how useless the Academy really is.
Shorter Nicol: Sandler is a Republican. He RULES.
Shorter Christian; I’d rather cut to a cheap political shot than deal with the issue at hand which my little brain cannot comprehend.
As I wrote above, I am not a Sandler fan. But unlike you , I give credit where credit is due.
Speaking of Sandler, check the directors to whose oeuvres Armond White lovingly compares “Grown-Ups,” currently rocking an 8 percent on the Tomatometer:
Mike Leigh, Paul Mazursky, Jean Fucking Renoir.
an interesting list to be sure … I like the the way credits are listed, especially for the cinematographers or Peter R for Crossing Delaney … and yeah, Bono and The Edge weren’t getting enough screeners
Setting aside whether Saldana does or does not deserve to be there, I saw this like 15 min video earlier this year about the making of Avatar and she and the other actors really animated the blue cartoons, not that animators drew them up and the actors served merely for voices. I think if more people had seen this she prolly would’ve gotten an acting nom.
I can’t say I’ve ever really followed Academy membership, (a part from knowing which friend of a friend may have access to screeners), but there seems to have been some bitching over the years about who gets in and who does not. Surely at some point there could’ve been enough either very vocal or very persuasive members to make things a little more uniform or perhaps what some may deem to be fair. And yet, nothing seems to change…
It’s only bs when you’re on the outside looking in. If next year’s list were the size of a cookie fortune, not one person would renounce his or her membership.
Actually, Marco Beltrami is automatically a member of the Academy because he was nominated, just like anyone else who has been nominated in any category. And I assume Brian Tyler was invited in for his body of composing work which is highly respected, not the movie quality. And remember, each person in the academy is voted in by members of that branch. So other film composers that are already in the academy vote for whom they deem worthy. Just like any category.
Perhaps you know something about Beltrami that I do not, Marc Benning… but as far as I know, the “if you are nominated, you are invited rule” hasn’t been in effect for some time.
If that rule was in effect, I don’t expect that the many nominees from last year would need to be invited this year, any more than someone like Davis Guggenheim would be being invited two years after winning the Oscar.
And yes, I know that branches do their own invitations. But “deeming worthy” can be a political call as much as one based on artistic worth.
I don’t know Mr. Tyler’s work. I just know that Beltrami has not been invited by his branch to be a member in the last number of years… and before that, was doing movies not unlike Tyler’s.
Re: Sandler – any Republican who makes a hit movie arguing in favor of gay marriage is fine by me.