The Best Picture Formula Ramble

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Re: The Best Picture Formula Ramble

Post by mlrg »

Sabin wrote:
mlrg wrote
From your assessment it could very well be The Shape of Water
Well, I think Three Billboards... looks more likely at this point. There's a chance it walks home with nothing. But sure! Who knows? The only thing holding me back from predicting The Shape of Water at this point is we don't know how the Academy will react to its weirdness. But it seems pretty clearly in.

I'm watching Three Billboards... later this week, but it seems to me like the likeliest winner at this point for its range of appeal. Let's say you put Get Out at number one. It stands to reason that Three Billboards... might be your number two. Same thing with Lady Bird. Or The Post. It could end up shoring up the widest range of support.
Well I'm seeing Three Billboards in half an hour :)
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Re: The Best Picture Formula Ramble

Post by Sabin »

mlrg wrote
From your assessment it could very well be The Shape of Water
Well, I think Three Billboards... looks more likely at this point. There's a chance it walks home with nothing. But sure! Who knows? The only thing holding me back from predicting The Shape of Water at this point is we don't know how the Academy will react to its weirdness. But it seems pretty clearly in.

I'm watching Three Billboards... later this week, but it seems to me like the likeliest winner at this point for its range of appeal. Let's say you put Get Out at number one. It stands to reason that Three Billboards... might be your number two. Same thing with Lady Bird. Or The Post. It could end up shoring up the widest range of support.
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Re: The Best Picture Formula Ramble

Post by mlrg »

Sabin wrote:
The Original BJ wrote
My hope, of course, is that we have a real race between a lot of genuinely exciting movies, and I think that is definitely a possible scenario.
I decided to take your Three Billboards quote and shift it here...

Further down in my post, I wrote that usually when we have a wide open race, it's between movies that we wish we loved a little bit more. Spotlight/The Big Short/The Revenant. Gladiator/Crouching Tiger.../Traffic. This year, I think we're going to see a more open sort of race but between films that inspire real enthusiasm. I may not love Dunkirk but there are people who are quite serious about calling it one of the crowning achievements of the decade.

But we're already looking at a race where the guilds are all over the place...
DGA -- probably Dunkirk
PGA -- could be Dunkirk, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it go to Three Billboards... or even Get out.
SAG -- likely Three Billboards..., but could be Get Out.
WGA -- well, it won't be Three Billboards... I'm also unclear as to whether Dee Rees, James Ivory, or Greta Gerwig are WGA. It's possible both Oscar winners for screenplay won't be eligible.
BAFTA -- Dunkirk or Three Billboards...


My point? Obviously it might not happen, but it's possible that the eventual Best Picture winner takes home NO guild prizes.
From your assessment it could very well be The Shape of Water
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Re: The Best Picture Formula Ramble

Post by Sabin »

The Original BJ wrote
My hope, of course, is that we have a real race between a lot of genuinely exciting movies, and I think that is definitely a possible scenario.
I decided to take your Three Billboards quote and shift it here...

Further down in my post, I wrote that usually when we have a wide open race, it's between movies that we wish we loved a little bit more. Spotlight/The Big Short/The Revenant. Gladiator/Crouching Tiger.../Traffic. This year, I think we're going to see a more open sort of race but between films that inspire real enthusiasm. I may not love Dunkirk but there are people who are quite serious about calling it one of the crowning achievements of the decade.

But we're already looking at a race where the guilds are all over the place...
DGA -- probably Dunkirk
PGA -- could be Dunkirk, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it go to Three Billboards... or even Get out.
SAG -- likely Three Billboards..., but could be Get Out.
WGA -- well, it won't be Three Billboards... I'm also unclear as to whether Dee Rees, James Ivory, or Greta Gerwig are WGA. It's possible both Oscar winners for screenplay won't be eligible.
BAFTA -- Dunkirk or Three Billboards...


My point? Obviously it might not happen, but it's possible that the eventual Best Picture winner takes home NO guild prizes.
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Re: The Best Picture Formula Ramble

Post by Okri »

The Original BJ wrote:Great conversation, everyone.

One thing that's definitely worth pointing out is that for all the talk of the "New" Academy, very little about the nominations and awards last year actually reflected any seismic shift. This has been a bit masked because the big story of the ceremony -- Moonlight's Best Picture win -- was probably the ONE thing that would make a long-time Oscar watcher think that perhaps something about this group had changed. But there weren't any left-field surprises among the Best Picture nominees, the Director category couldn't even come up with a cool lone-director style candidate, and the acting nominees went almost entirely as expected. The one acting candidate you maybe could point to as being edgier than the norm is Isabelle Huppert -- but even she had a Golden Globe in her pocket, plus decades of global fame, so it's not like Oscar voters were plucking one of those barely-known foreign actresses repeatedly feted by LAFCA for citation. Some might point to the increasing diversity of last year's crop as evidence of change as well, but can you honestly tell me with a straight face that Washington and Davis in Fences or Spencer in Hidden Figures wouldn't have been recognized by the Academy of ten years ago?
Maybe, but I can point out that the cronyist of categories - scoring, cinematography - went out of their norms in huge ways. 4 of the five nominees in each category were first timers, which never happens. And given the overall trend away from a high number of first time nominees in the, that's a pretty staggering fact in my mind.
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Re: The Best Picture Formula Ramble

Post by Sabin »

FilmFan720 wrote
It might not have been their thinking right out, but I think you have to allow that it has some (maybe even subconscious) part of their playing. There is certainly a shift that allows voters to even consider No Country a viable nominee, let alone contender. In the 80s, when there was a much more specific thought of what was/could be an Oscar contender, isn't our lineup possibly American Gangster, Atonement, Juno, Hairspray, and Michael Clayton is our edgy, dark contender? Wouldn't there be a time when No Country would be too dark to even be considered a contender? There has been a shift in our thinking about what the best of the year can be if they are willing to even put No Country up there.
I think it's largely happenstance. I mean, we can't claim that the change began in 1991 with The Silence of the Lambs, right? I think every race creates a specific set of circumstances that results in one film pulling ahead. Had Chicago been released in 2007, I think it would have won. I don't think the Academy had a desire to honor the Coen Brothers or "go dark." I just think there wasn't anything else to choose from.
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Re: The Best Picture Formula Ramble

Post by mlrg »

Big Magilla wrote:
Big Magilla wrote
People have been impugning the integrity of the Academy Awards since their inception, and with good reason, so impugn away. However, to paint all old white people with the same brush is not only unfair, it's ridiculous. Some of those old people fought the fight for fairness all through their careers. Ernest Borgnine and Tony Curtis notwithstanding, Brokeback Mountain's loss to Crash were more likely at the hands of the at-large members, the agents, publicists and other sycophants who only vote for Best Picture, not individual branch members who vote in all categories. Those at-large members are the ones the Academy should divest itself of.
Sabin wrote
First of all, I'm not painting all old white people with the same brush. I'm painting all old white Academy voters with the same brush. And forgive me, but it's kind of hard not to. This is the group that for years and years consistently chose, for lack of a better term, "The Wrong Movie." You can point out rare exceptions how ever much you like, but it's usually for lack of a viable alternative.

But I'll address your point directly. Here's something else I can't prove but I'll say it anyway. I'll bet a lot of those agents, publicists, and sycophants voted for Moonlight over La La Land.
The problem with the Best Picture vote count is that the Oscar doesn't go to the film with the most no. 1 votes, but the film that gets the most votes in a convoluted counting process that makes about as much sense as the electoral college selection of the U.S. president over the popular vote.

La La Land may have gotten more no. 1 votes than any other film, but Moonlight won with a better combination of 1st, 2nd and 3rd place votes. It would have gotten the no. 2 spot on my ballot behind Manchester by the Sea.
This is exactly why I think Spotlight won best picture. The other contenders were too divise and Spotlight received enough number 2 votes to secure the win.
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Re: The Best Picture Formula Ramble

Post by FilmFan720 »

Sabin wrote:
FilmFan720 wrote
When something like No Country for Old Men was released, with near unanimous acclaim from filmmakers who have proven themselves to be major artists (even if they don't make what used to be called an Oscar Film), it feels like an instant classic. Voters feel comfortable voting for it because it is a piece that will last.
I disagree. I don't think that was at all their thinking. I think they had zero alternatives. I think they loved the film, hated the ending, but as time went on and they looked around the room, it became their only choice.

(On the one hand, if we follow the formula I posited below:
Atonement wasn't up for the DGA, PGA, SAG, or film editing.
Juno wasn't up for the DGA, BAFTA, SAG (which is remarkable), or film editing.
Michael Clayton wasn't up for the BAFTA, SAG, or film editing.
There Will Be Blood wasn't up for the SAG.
No Country for Old Men was nominated or won for a DGA, PGA, SAG, and BAFTA, and was up for screenplay and film editing.

That said, I'm not a formula wonk and I will likely happily discard this thing the first chance I get when predicting...and likely to be wrong.
It might not have been their thinking right out, but I think you have to allow that it has some (maybe even subconscious) part of their playing. There is certainly a shift that allows voters to even consider No Country a viable nominee, let alone contender. In the 80s, when there was a much more specific thought of what was/could be an Oscar contender, isn't our lineup possibly American Gangster, Atonement, Juno, Hairspray, and Michael Clayton is our edgy, dark contender? Wouldn't there be a time when No Country would be too dark to even be considered a contender? There has been a shift in our thinking about what the best of the year can be if they are willing to even put No Country up there.
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Re: The Best Picture Formula Ramble

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Here are some of your answers:

http://www.oscars.org/about/becoming-ne ... quirements - individual requirements to be added to each branch

http://digitalcollections.oscars.org/cd ... 4/id/14474 - An archive of the 2015 Academy bylaws, not likely that much has changed since these were in effect. Note that the library does not contain copies of the bylaws from 2016 or 2017. However, looking at the information in the library, they only have Bylaws in the collection every 2 years, so I'm guessing that 2017 isn't included because it's still currently in force, though the 90th Academy Awards rules are already in there.
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Re: The Best Picture Formula Ramble

Post by Sabin »

The Original BJ wrote
I wonder what the impact of Darkest Hour will have on Dunkirk, and vice versa. Does Dunkirk become the clear rallying cry for traditionalists, giving Darkest Hour a nomination haul closer to The Danish Girl than The Imitation Game? Or if Darkest Hour becomes a Best Picture candidate, does it significantly eat into Dunkirk's support? There's also maybe a compelling argument to be made that Dunkirk could hit a sweet spot -- old-fashioned enough for The King's Speech crowd, but technologically groundbreaking enough and helmed by a director considered "cool" enough to carry along some of the hipper voters as well.
Well, to your first point, I think they complement each other and make each other look greater by comparison...

But to your second point, I think this is the biggest thing it has going for it. Dunkirk is ANYTHING but a dull piece of rote wartime filmmaking. It doesn't look like a rote war movie. It has that "New Masterpiece" smell.
The Original BJ wrote
One thing that's definitely worth pointing out is that for all the talk of the "New" Academy, very little about the nominations and awards last year actually reflected any seismic shift. This has been a bit masked because the big story of the ceremony -- Moonlight's Best Picture win -- was probably the ONE thing that would make a long-time Oscar watcher think that perhaps something about this group had changed. But there weren't any left-field surprises among the Best Picture nominees, the Director category couldn't even come up with a cool lone-director style candidate, and the acting nominees went almost entirely as expected.
That is a very good point. There was no John Singleton or Pedro Almodovar or Fernando Meirelles. And there should have been.

Look, maybe I'm wrong with my theory that it's the new Academy membership. The upside to me being right is that our predictions will be more off but the choices will be better.

The Original BJ wrote
It is worth reiterating that even being the biggest phenomenon in film history can't always overcome the lack of a screenplay nod to win Best Picture -- neither Jaws nor Avatar were able to pull it off -- so it's a pretty tough hurdle. All of this being said, we still don't know if Dunkirk will definitely miss the Screenplay category -- it seems like an impossible get, given the nature of the movie, and the competitive slate on the original side -- but what if it gets that nomination?
Well, like I said earlier in my post: if Dunkirk gets a screenplay nomination, then I think it wins. See how happy I am to chuck my formula out the window? Regardless of whether it picks up a SAG nomination for its Acting Ensemble (and it will assuredly win for best Stunt Ensemble), a writing nomination means that it has enough widespread support for its creativity, if not emotion.

But it's such an uphill battle! He'll be up against such writerly films. No need to rehash them as I've mentioned them before. And let's not forget that Christopher Nolan isn't quite the Academy darling people think. Forget his directing nomination. The fact that The Dark Knight couldn't get a nomination for its screenwriting in a field of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Doubt, Frost/Nixon, The Reader, and Slumdog Millionaire is baffling. I would argue only one of those is even close to being a totally successful screenplay.
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Re: The Best Picture Formula Ramble

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The Original BJ wrote:we still don't know if Dunkirk will definitely miss the Screenplay category -- it seems like an impossible get, given the nature of the movie, and the competitive slate on the original side -- but what if it gets that nomination?
Then I'd suspect that, like Gladiator (whose screenplay nod shocked us), it will become the clear favorite.

To BJ's point, that the Moonlight win might have us overstating the Academy's transformation: The last two years, the biggest "didn't expect that" moments came in the best picture category. And this could simply be because this is the one category that plays by different rules (i.e., the preferential ballot). When the number of nominees/method of voting changed in 2009, some of us thought this could lead to surprising outcomes, especially divergence between best picture and best director. When this didn't happen the first three years (including in 2009, when the situation seemed ripe), we were ready to drop the notion, only to see it ratified almost immediately after. We've now had four years out of five where film and director were different, and, whatever rationalization we can offer for individual results, taken as a whole, it screams out "this category is not like the others". Most others categories have turned out as long-time tradition has led us to expect (including DGA/best director correlation, except in oddball 2012). So maybe it's just that post-2008 rule change that's got us thinking the world has turned upside down.

I'm going to side with Magilla and say I think its too reductive to think it was just old voters who were screwing up the curve on good choices. Obviously, if the voter is someone like Billy Mumy (who I was shocked to read was on the rolls), or some old fart who longs for the days when everything was Rated G, there's a case to be made. But we're now to the stage where many who'd fall into the "old" slot are people instrumental in creating those movies from the 70s we all so revere. I think Magilla is correct, that many of the industry's non-creatives -- publicists etc. -- could be the ones dragging down the rest. Not to mention, say, the costuming branch -- the people whose love for corsets might well drift over to their best picture votes. And I couldn't help noticing, last year, when that huge list of new invitees came out, one of the longest sets of roster additions came in the visual effects branch. Pardon me if I make a sweeping generalization, but I'm guessing many of these are people who've spent their lives writing code hunched over a computer, and they won't necessarily be acquainted with Antonioni and Bresson. Just saying, there've always been Academy members who are closer to the Sciences than the Arts parts of AMPAS, and it's possible they're responsible for the un-hip choices...not some actor who's worked for Scorsese and the Coens but has the misfortune of having passed 70.
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Re: The Best Picture Formula Ramble

Post by Sabin »

FilmFan720 wrote
When something like No Country for Old Men was released, with near unanimous acclaim from filmmakers who have proven themselves to be major artists (even if they don't make what used to be called an Oscar Film), it feels like an instant classic. Voters feel comfortable voting for it because it is a piece that will last.
I disagree. I don't think that was at all their thinking. I think they had zero alternatives. I think they loved the film, hated the ending, but as time went on and they looked around the room, it became their only choice.

(On the one hand, if we follow the formula I posited below:
Atonement wasn't up for the DGA, PGA, SAG, or film editing.
Juno wasn't up for the DGA, BAFTA, SAG (which is remarkable), or film editing.
Michael Clayton wasn't up for the BAFTA, SAG, or film editing.
There Will Be Blood wasn't up for the SAG.
No Country for Old Men was nominated or won for a DGA, PGA, SAG, and BAFTA, and was up for screenplay and film editing.

That said, I'm not a formula wonk and I will likely happily discard this thing the first chance I get when predicting...and likely to be wrong.
FilmFan720 wrote
Last year, doesn't Moonlight feel more like a game changer than La La Land (although I adore both films equally), and like the sort of film that will still be discussed decades from now. We have certainly moved on from a year where sex, lies, and videotape and Do the Right Thing are ignored in favor of Field of Dreams and Driving Miss Daisy. What were once edgy films, due to their content, style, or genre, and which had to grow into their acclaim, are now embraced on a broader scale much faster.... I don't know how much of this goes through a voters mind, but I think this shift in perspective is certainly a factor at play.
Here's an idea: what if the influence is television? For years, motion pictures were at the vanguard of mature content. That hasn't been the case for almost twenty years, since The Sopranos. Maybe they can simply stomach more. And perhaps that's why some of their recent choices like The Hurt Locker or Argo or Spotlight look more like television than the films they defeated.
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Re: The Best Picture Formula Ramble

Post by Big Magilla »

Big Magilla wrote
People have been impugning the integrity of the Academy Awards since their inception, and with good reason, so impugn away. However, to paint all old white people with the same brush is not only unfair, it's ridiculous. Some of those old people fought the fight for fairness all through their careers. Ernest Borgnine and Tony Curtis notwithstanding, Brokeback Mountain's loss to Crash were more likely at the hands of the at-large members, the agents, publicists and other sycophants who only vote for Best Picture, not individual branch members who vote in all categories. Those at-large members are the ones the Academy should divest itself of.
Sabin wrote
First of all, I'm not painting all old white people with the same brush. I'm painting all old white Academy voters with the same brush. And forgive me, but it's kind of hard not to. This is the group that for years and years consistently chose, for lack of a better term, "The Wrong Movie." You can point out rare exceptions how ever much you like, but it's usually for lack of a viable alternative.

But I'll address your point directly. Here's something else I can't prove but I'll say it anyway. I'll bet a lot of those agents, publicists, and sycophants voted for Moonlight over La La Land.
The problem with the Best Picture vote count is that the Oscar doesn't go to the film with the most no. 1 votes, but the film that gets the most votes in a convoluted counting process that makes about as much sense as the electoral college selection of the U.S. president over the popular vote.

La La Land may have gotten more no. 1 votes than any other film, but Moonlight won with a better combination of 1st, 2nd and 3rd place votes. It would have gotten the no. 2 spot on my ballot behind Manchester by the Sea.
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Re: The Best Picture Formula Ramble

Post by Big Magilla »

Greg wrote:
Big Magilla wrote:Ernest Borgnine and Tony Curtis notwithstanding, Brokeback Mountain's loss to Crash was more likely at the hands of the at-large members, the agents, publicists and other sycophants who only vote for Best Picture, not individual branch members who vote in all categories.
I thought at-large members could only vote for Best Picture with regards to nominations, but, could, vote in all categories for awards.
You may be right. I couldn't find the answer at Oscars.org - the only thing they say is that they can vote for Best Picture nominees. Wikipedia says they can't vote at all, which is obviously wrong.
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Re: The Best Picture Formula Ramble

Post by The Original BJ »

Great conversation, everyone.

One thing that's definitely worth pointing out is that for all the talk of the "New" Academy, very little about the nominations and awards last year actually reflected any seismic shift. This has been a bit masked because the big story of the ceremony -- Moonlight's Best Picture win -- was probably the ONE thing that would make a long-time Oscar watcher think that perhaps something about this group had changed. But there weren't any left-field surprises among the Best Picture nominees, the Director category couldn't even come up with a cool lone-director style candidate, and the acting nominees went almost entirely as expected. The one acting candidate you maybe could point to as being edgier than the norm is Isabelle Huppert -- but even she had a Golden Globe in her pocket, plus decades of global fame, so it's not like Oscar voters were plucking one of those barely-known foreign actresses repeatedly feted by LAFCA for citation. Some might point to the increasing diversity of last year's crop as evidence of change as well, but can you honestly tell me with a straight face that Washington and Davis in Fences or Spencer in Hidden Figures wouldn't have been recognized by the Academy of ten years ago?

I'm not saying any of this to contradict my argument that I think Oscar will very much have politics on its mind this year, but simply that they'll most likely still express those feelings by rewarding films generally within their wheelhouse, and this year provides a lot of options to do so. It's not like I think The Killing of a Sacred Deer is going to win Best Picture.

I wonder what the impact of Darkest Hour will have on Dunkirk, and vice versa. Does Dunkirk become the clear rallying cry for traditionalists, giving Darkest Hour a nomination haul closer to The Danish Girl than The Imitation Game? Or if Darkest Hour becomes a Best Picture candidate, does it significantly eat into Dunkirk's support? There's also maybe a compelling argument to be made that Dunkirk could hit a sweet spot -- old-fashioned enough for The King's Speech crowd, but technologically groundbreaking enough and helmed by a director considered "cool" enough to carry along some of the hipper voters as well.

It is worth reiterating that even being the biggest phenomenon in film history can't always overcome the lack of a screenplay nod to win Best Picture -- neither Jaws nor Avatar were able to pull it off -- so it's a pretty tough hurdle. All of this being said, we still don't know if Dunkirk will definitely miss the Screenplay category -- it seems like an impossible get, given the nature of the movie, and the competitive slate on the original side -- but what if it gets that nomination?
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