As I said last year when it came up against La La Land, I think people are generally very reductive towards in applying these arbitrary definitions. While they may be the movie with the most 'Hollywood! Show biz!' appeal of their respective years, Argo, Birdman, La La Land, and the Shape of Water really aren't about the movies in any particularly substantial way.mfunk9786 wrote:It bothers me when a bad or mediocre movie is rewarded disproportionately because it's got a pro-movie message, whether that be the primary plot thread or something almost shoehorned in, the latter being the case with The Shape of Water. If I didn't like movies I wouldn't be on this forum
Awards Season 2017
- Ribs
- Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2014 1:14 pm
Re: Awards Season 2017
- aox
- Joined: Fri Jun 20, 2008 12:02 pm
- Location: nYc
Re: Awards Season 2017
It's been years, but I still seem to recall Ben Affleck winking at me during Argo.
- Big Ben
- Joined: Mon Feb 08, 2016 12:54 pm
- Location: Great Falls, Montana
Re: Awards Season 2017
Everyone here lives at some level for the messiness and ensuing drama of the Oscars. Don't lie folks! We're all here for it!
- mfunk9786
- Under Chris' Protection
- Joined: Fri May 16, 2008 4:43 pm
- Location: Philadelphia, PA
Re: Awards Season 2017
Sounds like you got off easy!aox wrote:It's been years, but I still seem to recall Ben Affleck winking at me during Argo.
Re: Awards Season 2017
Isn't that exactly what the complaint is, though?Ribs wrote:While they may be the movie with the most 'Hollywood! Show biz!' appeal of their respective years, Argo, Birdman, La La Land, and the Shape of Water really aren't about the movies in any particularly substantial way.
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm
Re: Awards Season 2017
No. He means they ostensibly are not movies about movies in the way Subset Blvd is, not that their depiction of movies is lacking
- DarkImbecile
- Ask me about my visible cat breasts
- Joined: Mon Dec 09, 2013 6:24 pm
- Location: Albuquerque, NM
Re: Awards Season 2017
I'd agree that rewarding a movie solely because it highlights the professions of the voting body is wrong-headed, but I think that believing that this happens often might be a false assumption, in that the people making films also passionately, obsessively love movies, and so films (especially auteurist films) are disproportionately seeded with references to other films and the medium generally. Many films that fail to win or are ignored completely during awards season are just as loaded with film references (with varying degrees of relevance to the core of those films) as the Best Picture winners that draw this complaint.
- Shrew
- The Untamed One
- Joined: Tue Feb 27, 2007 2:22 am
Re: Awards Season 2017
Shape of Water also has a weird on-screen cinephilia. The theater is showing a second-rate biblical epic that no one today remembers to nearly empty seats. The "good" movies are on a fuzzy TV set. Despite the loving production design, I think the film's an attack on baby boomer nostalgia for the 60s, though it turn reflects a nostalgia for the films of the 30s (which isn't really willing to interrogate).
- Brian C
- I hate to be That Pedantic Guy but...
- Joined: Wed Sep 16, 2009 11:58 am
- Location: Chicago, IL
Re: Awards Season 2017
At the very least, it's hard for me to see how the movie references in The Shape of Water were "shoehorned in". They seemed baked into the cake from both a narrative and thematic standpoint - the film grew out of a Creature from the Black Lagoon remake, didn't it?
I guess that doesn't mean that they had to live above a movie theatre, but in a period-piece monster movie from Del Toro, details like that hardly seem forced or out of place.
I guess that doesn't mean that they had to live above a movie theatre, but in a period-piece monster movie from Del Toro, details like that hardly seem forced or out of place.
- movielocke
- Joined: Fri Jan 18, 2008 12:44 am
Re: Awards Season 2017
thats not surprising, Oscar ratings correspond pretty closely to the box office success of the nominees. iirc, The highest rated shows in recent memory were the years with avatar, rotk and titanic.lacritfan wrote:Least-watched Oscars in history
And the ratings were relatively stable before 2005, because in general the films nominated were all top twenty at the box office. but ratings began to decline at 2005. Nowadays, outlier nominees like avatar are extremely uncommon and it’s rare that any of the nominees are in he years top twenty at the box office.
What changed? Well up until 2001, most screeners were vhs, 2002 saw a lot of piracy of newly popular DVDs, 2003 saw the academy making special DVD players, 2004 saw the total screener ban, and in 2005 there were no restrictions on screeners going forward, and crash flooded the marketplace, this four year period also corresponded with an explosion of internet based punditry, analysis, aggregation and awards trackers like gold derby, gurus of gold, in contention
And lest we forget cellular phones being used to access the internet became more and more common, over this timeframe, and most people in the industry transitioned early on to a blackberry (or equivalent) smartphone with the iPhone dropping in 2007 and dominating going forward
The combination of the awards aggregators, easy internet access, and voters receiving fifty plus screeners means that recipients started using google to figure out the annual buzz and thus filter what they should prioritize out of the pile. This has lead to a relentless march of nominees that every year are less seen (by the movie going public) than the year before. Since year after year the films nominated are less familiar to the population at large, ratings for the Oscars continue to drop.
- Ribs
- Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2014 1:14 pm
Re: Awards Season 2017
The ratings continue to drop at pace with almost the entirety of television, though, and are still one of the most watched events of the year, with a rating of ~20 (regular TV shows are considered massive hits with a rating of 2!). I think people yelling about declining ratings are incredibly short-sighted, the same as those who think the show's too long, and don't seem to think, "wow - 25 million people watched! Amazing!"
There's basically no reason whatsoever for them to change - this year's Best Picture nominees had an average gross $7 million higher than last year's going into the ceremony. Would you rather them NOT have nominated Call Me By Your Name and Phantom Thread to goose that number? Phantom Thread has, without question, probably made north of double what Focus expected before nominations and is still playing in semi-wide release, probably still going to make another million or so before the BP nomination will definitely help carry it to some stronger home video sales than previously expected.
I dearly wish we'd have a winner that had made just a ton of money, but it just seems like it won't happen, which sucks. I really did not believe in Get Out's narrative, but to me, that was the real winning argument for why to vote for it, and I know that's really deeply cynical.
There's basically no reason whatsoever for them to change - this year's Best Picture nominees had an average gross $7 million higher than last year's going into the ceremony. Would you rather them NOT have nominated Call Me By Your Name and Phantom Thread to goose that number? Phantom Thread has, without question, probably made north of double what Focus expected before nominations and is still playing in semi-wide release, probably still going to make another million or so before the BP nomination will definitely help carry it to some stronger home video sales than previously expected.
I dearly wish we'd have a winner that had made just a ton of money, but it just seems like it won't happen, which sucks. I really did not believe in Get Out's narrative, but to me, that was the real winning argument for why to vote for it, and I know that's really deeply cynical.
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- Joined: Sat Jan 14, 2017 3:04 pm
- Fiery Angel
- Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2009 1:59 pm
Re: Awards Season 2017
Took him long enough.
Last edited by Fiery Angel on Tue Mar 06, 2018 4:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
- zedz
- Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm
Re: Awards Season 2017 [Come watch the Oscars with us!]
Well, we didn't even give her an In Memoriam thread here, so who are we to cast stones?Clarence wrote:Seriously, no clip for Jeanne Moreau?
- spectre
- Joined: Thu Dec 29, 2011 4:52 am
Re: Awards Season 2017
I’m really not. I’d die if I had to watch five minutes of it.Big Ben wrote:Everyone here lives at some level for the messiness and ensuing drama of the Oscars. Don't lie folks! We're all here for it!
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm
Re: Awards Season 2017
No, you wouldn't
- bearcuborg
- Joined: Fri Sep 14, 2007 2:30 am
- Location: Philadelphia via Chicago
Re: Awards Season 2017
When I realized Naked 33 1/3 accurately parodied award shows-I could no longer watch without cringing. It all feels like the Masterpiece Video scene from Ghost World. When I was a kid, I did enjoy Billy Crystal’s monologue.furbicide wrote:I’m really not. I’d die if I had to watch five minutes of it.Big Ben wrote:Everyone here lives at some level for the messiness and ensuing drama of the Oscars. Don't lie folks! We're all here for it!
The only enjoyable part of these awful shows was Joan Rivers doing Fashion Police and Howard Stern goofing on it the day after.
- FrauBlucher
- Joined: Mon Jul 15, 2013 8:28 pm
- Location: Greenwich Village
Re: Awards Season 2017
I take umbrage with this. It would take you much more than five minutes to die. Maybe after the third hour when you realize there's another hour left.furbicide wrote:I’m really not. I’d die if I had to watch five minutes of it.Big Ben wrote:Everyone here lives at some level for the messiness and ensuing drama of the Oscars. Don't lie folks! We're all here for it!
I haven't watched the Oscars in years. I have no interest and would rather watch a film instead. Usually enjoy opening a brand spanking new Criterion blu which I did sunday night. I watched La Chienne.
- TMDaines
- Joined: Wed Nov 11, 2009 1:01 pm
- Location: Stretford, Manchester
Re: Awards Season 2017
It's almost like people who like making movies like movies and like making movies where people also like movies.
- Luke M
- Joined: Thu Jul 12, 2007 9:21 pm
Re: Awards Season 2017
So what you’re saying is Ready Player One is going to sweep next year?