Final Thoughts on a Receding Season

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Mister Tee
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Re: Final Thoughts on a Receding Season

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Okri wrote:That said, I want to drift towards the acting categories a bit. It’s probably unfair for us to be too critical after last year saw Coleman beating Close and King winning despite being blanked at the TV awards. But frankly, are we ever gonna get acting races as competitive as best picture again? I wonder if preferential balloting would help. Probably not as much, given the smaller slate, but we live in hope. The year-round Oscar discussion has the effect of narrowing the field but I think that it narrows the field to what we feel the imaginary Oscar voter is like (and think of the Green Book voter, not the Moonlight voter).
I didn't want to let this slip past. I think this is a VERY interesting area -- so interesting, in fact, that it might inspire me to a Teesian thread. But that'll take a while to organize/find time for. Think of this as a preview of coming attractions.
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Re: Final Thoughts on a Receding Season

Post by OscarGuy »

The Farewell was American-made, so probably doesn't fit the "International" feature criteria the Oscars use. Yes, it was in Mandarin, but I don't think it would qualify as an international effort in that way. I think it suffered from peaking too early.

We saw an internationalizing of the Oscars in the 1960s and 1970s, which almost entirely receded with the blockbuster 80s.
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Re: Final Thoughts on a Receding Season

Post by Precious Doll »

All this talk of more 'international' cinema at the Oscars is fine but it does make me wonder what happened to The Farewell.

Widely acclaimed at Sundance last year. Opened to impressive box office in the US and outstanding reviews in the earlier part of the second half of the year. Tipped by numerous people and sites to be a player in picture, actress, supporting actress, original screenplay categories and maybe even director, but by the time all the other films came along everyone seemed to forgot which is odd because it had a lot of passionate supporters.

It won a few minor awards along the way but couldn't even make any inroads in the actress categories at the Oscars in what turned out to be rather ordinary line-ups in both lead and supporting.

But internationally there was virtually no interest in the film. Box Office Mojo is not the most reliable source as it usually underestimates the grosses because it doesn't record everything even so 80% of the films total box office was from North America and the remaining 20% the rest of the world.

Parasite has gotten bums on seats all over the planet but The Farewell didn't break out beyond North America. Of course Parasite is a far more dynamic and imaginative film with broader appeal but the failure of The Farewell to get even a single Oscar nomination does bode well for other subtitled films. Of course the shorter time frame probably meant a lot of members simply didn't watch the film because more high profile films came along in the later months of the year. And could be the simple explanation along with more international membership worked against an American/Chinese view of life in China.
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Re: Final Thoughts on a Receding Season

Post by anonymous1980 »

I think that "internationalizing" the Oscars is actually good for its future in the long term. One thing that the Oscars have that the Superbowl doesn't have is a huge international audience. The ratings for the Oscars stateside may be low but I think it more than makes up for it by its international numbers. Opening up the Oscars to have more international nominees can do wonders for it in the world stage. I think this is a far healthier solution for its dwindling ratings than trying to find ways to honor Marvel movies.
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Re: Final Thoughts on a Receding Season

Post by Okri »

Hmm… The optimistic side of me (such as it is) feels that the “internationalizing” of AMPAS could potentially lead to more foreign performers and films getting through, but as Tee said, the profile of Parasite was much more likely to get recognition than most other films will be (the same way that Antonio Banderas had a better shot at a nomination than Song Kang-Ho). A studio would have to market it very carefully (Neon did terrifically there). It’s interesting, because we kinda saw that in 2018 a little bit. Roma, Shoplifters, Burning, Cold War and Capernaum all came out of Cannes with some heat-seeking buzz. It became the rare year where all five foreign language nominees made over a million bucks at the box office (I’m including Roma even if Netflix doesn’t report grosses). We had two directors of non-English films in best director last year. And again, both had more favourable profile (I actually think the language requirement in international film is essential and was rather surprised at the backlash this year

That said, I want to drift towards the acting categories a bit. It’s probably unfair for us to be too critical after last year saw Coleman beating Close and King winning despite being blanked at the TV awards. But frankly, are we ever gonna get acting races as competitive as best picture again? I wonder if preferential balloting would help. Probably not as much, given the smaller slate, but we live in hope. The year-round Oscar discussion has the effect of narrowing the field but I think that it narrows the field to what we feel the imaginary Oscar voter is like (and think of the Green Book voter, not the Moonlight voter).

Side note: since the 40’s, we’ve roughly added one three-time Oscar winner every decade+ (Brennan in 1940, Hepburn in 1968, Bergman in 1974, Nicholson in 1997). This decade, we had two performers hit that milestone back-to-back (Streep/Day-Lewis), the first category where all the nominees were previous winners (supporting actor, 2012) and five more performers won their second Oscar (Waltz, Ali, Blanchett, Zellweger, and McDormand). You’d have to go back to the 1930s to find fewer performers winning first acting Oscars. Not sure if it means anything.

While it was confirmed last season, the win for Hildur Guðnadóttir’s lets a startling trend shine brighter: composers winning on their first nomination (or first year of nominations for those that do both song writing and scoring, as was the case for Danna). This decade, there were 7 composers winning for their first nomination. In the previous decade, there were only 12 first time nominees. The cliquiest of branches getting a little less so? This decade also saw the category have more first time nominees than returning nominees twice (2018 and 2017)
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Re: Final Thoughts on a Receding Season

Post by taki15 »

Reza wrote:
taki15 wrote:I don't get why the Academy changed the Foreign Language category to International. English, Australian, Canadian, and Irish films are international but obviously still ineligible.
Actually none of the countries you mention are ineligible. They have all submitted films in the foreign category over the years.

Tanna was nominated from Australia.

The Decline of the American Empire, Jesus of Montreal, Water, Incendies, Monsieur Lazhar, War Witch were all nominated from Canada.

Hedd Wynn and Solomon and Gaenor were nominated from England.

Ireland has submitted films but they have yet to receive a nomination.

All these films were in languages other than english.
But that's exactly was my point. If the language in which the movie was filmed remains the only criterion of whether it is eligible or not, then why change the name? International means from another country but obviously English-speaking films from the countries I mentioned (and which are the vast majority) are still ineligible.
Anyway, I think Magilla nailed it that this is mostly a PR move to make the Academy and the Oscars feel more inclusive.
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Re: Final Thoughts on a Receding Season

Post by Big Magilla »

Reza wrote:
taki15 wrote:I don't get why the Academy changed the Foreign Language category to International. English, Australian, Canadian, and Irish films are international but obviously still ineligible.
Actually none of the countries you mention are ineligible. They have all submitted films in the foreign category over the years.
Tanna was nominated from Australia.
The Decline of the American Empire, Jesus of Montreal, Water, Incendies, Monsieur Lazhar, War Witch were all nominated from Canada.
Hedd Wynn and Solomon and Gaenor were nominated from England.
Ireland has submitted films but they have yet to receive a nomination.

All these films were in languages other than English.
Yep! This posted while I was working on my similarly themed post.
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Re: Final Thoughts on a Receding Season

Post by Big Magilla »

taki15 wrote:I don't get why the Academy changed the Foreign Language category to International. English, Australian, Canadian, and Irish films are international but obviously still ineligible.

Also, it feels kinda strange to me that the first foreign film to break the glass ceiling of winning best picture wasn't from a country with a long and celebrated cinematic history like France, Italy, Japan, etc., but from relative newcomer Korea. Then again some might argue that "The Artist" was actually the first that did it.
Good point about The Artist which was the first winner mostly financed by a non-English speaking country (France with some help from Belgium), although it was a silent film made entirely in Hollywood so it doesn't fit within the umbrella of "foreign language" films. However, films from English speaking countries that make films in other languages are eligible. Canada routinely routinely submits French language films for consideration and has, in fact, had seven films nominated in the category with one (The Barbarian Invasions) winning.

One could argue that all films are international in their appeal. The name may be a bit misleading but it sounds inclusive whereas foreign sounds, well, foreign, and that's a no-no these days.
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Re: Final Thoughts on a Receding Season

Post by Reza »

taki15 wrote:I don't get why the Academy changed the Foreign Language category to International. English, Australian, Canadian, and Irish films are international but obviously still ineligible.
Actually none of the countries you mention are ineligible. They have all submitted films in the foreign category over the years.

Tanna was nominated from Australia.

The Decline of the American Empire, Jesus of Montreal, Water, Incendies, Monsieur Lazhar, War Witch were all nominated from Canada.

Hedd Wynn and Solomon and Gaenor were nominated from England.

Ireland has submitted films but they have yet to receive a nomination.

All these films were in languages other than english.
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Re: Final Thoughts on a Receding Season

Post by Precious Doll »

taki15 wrote:I don't get why the Academy changed the Foreign Language category to International. English, Australian, Canadian, and Irish films are international but obviously still ineligible.

Also, it feels kinda strange to me that the first foreign film to break the glass ceiling of winning best picture wasn't from a country with a long and celebrated cinematic history like France, Italy, Japan, etc., but from relative newcomer Korea. Then again some might argue that "The Artist" was actually the first that did it.
South Korea does have a long and celebrated cinematic history dating back to the 1960's, perhaps even earlier. They are not newcomers on the world cinema stage but in the context of the Parasite and the Oscars they may feel like newcomers admittedly.
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Re: Final Thoughts on a Receding Season

Post by taki15 »

I don't get why the Academy changed the Foreign Language category to International. English, Australian, Canadian, and Irish films are international but obviously still ineligible.

Also, it feels kinda strange to me that the first foreign film to break the glass ceiling of winning best picture wasn't from a country with a long and celebrated cinematic history like France, Italy, Japan, etc., but from relative newcomer Korea. Then again some might argue that "The Artist" was actually the first that did it.
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Re: Final Thoughts on a Receding Season

Post by anonymous1980 »

Great write-up again, Tee! I love reading your takes.
Mister Tee wrote:
Thomas Newman’s non-win for 1917 not only extends his losing streak, it ends a six-year streak of long-waiting below-the-line nominee finally getting an Oscar: Lubezki ’13, Desplat ’14, Morricone ’15, O’Connell ’16, Deakins ’17, Ruth Carter ’18. Let’s get it going again next year, Academy.
Maybe he and Diane Warren could collaborate on something.
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Re: Final Thoughts on a Receding Season

Post by Sabin »

Mister Tee wrote
It took a film with very special characteristics to make that leap, and I think we need to acknowledge Parasite possessed a near-perfect profile. I don’t actually think it’s quite as GREAT a movie as many do, but a whole lot of critics sure thought so – it had enough narrative invention, social critique and bravura filmmaking (culminating in that extraordinary journey through the Biblical flood) that it dominated critics’ voting even while competing with a well-above-average field. On top of that, audiences went for it in a big way. Someone once said of Citizen Kane that it’s just more fun than most great movies, and I think Parasite falls into the same category. Bong Joon Ho’s a storyteller/entertainer above all, and he gave audiences such a good time that people came out of screenings saying they LOVED it. This is the kind of enthusiasm that can make legendary upsets happen.
TWO SPRING-BOARDING THOUGHTS:

1) Completely agree with your assessment of Parasite's victory as a canny mix of fun with social importance. It's the anti-Roma. A film about squalor that everyone can enjoy. But I'll throw one more factor in. Neon is the anti-Netflix. While Netflix has a sort of Sanders-Scorch the Earth strategy for maneuvering past the gatekeepers to the victors, Neon plays the industry game *very* well while staying cutting edge. Like Miramax, something like Neon would take years to gain industry credibility years ago. But thanks to Netflix, Neon already feels as synonymous with quality as A24 and they've just been around for a couple of years.


2) We've all pointed out the crazy hurry of this year's Oscar season. In a longer Oscar season, would there be any doubt that Parasite was going to run away with this thing? Would Bong have won the DGA? Would Parasite have won the PGA? Clearly, Neon's strategy was get as many butts in the seats as possible and trust the product. In a wider Oscar season, is it possible that Parasite could have pulled in additional nominations for Supporting Actor, Original Score, and Cinematography? Could it have edged its way up to double-digit nominations? I think so. 1917 couldn't have had more stacked in its favor with the timing of its release and victories. It's clear that Parasite had one thing going against it: time.
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Mister Tee
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Final Thoughts on a Receding Season

Post by Mister Tee »

I doubt this post will measure up to the generous definition of “Teesian” danfrank proposed the other night. But I did want to offer a few more comments about this year’s events before they totally fade from memory. (And, yes, a look at the future of this year’s nominees will follow shortly after.)

Start with Parasite, because that was the best part of this year’s joust – the thing we’ll all take away from both the evening and the season. People are asking, does the breaking of the subtitled barrier mean foreign-language films (sorry – “international films”) will now compete regularly? I’m of two minds.

On one hand, Parasite could be Tiger Woods – the extraordinary exception that doesn’t change the overall gestalt of the arena in which it plays.

Alternatively (and closer to home): histories tell us the announcement of the first British best picture, Hamlet, was greeted with cold hostility – but, by the 60s, people barely batted an eye at Tom Jones and A Man for All Seasons winning, and the trend continued through Chariots of Fire, Gandhi and The King’s Speech. So, maybe we’re in brave new world. It’s been a slow climb: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon won the Directors’ Guild Award but faltered at AMPAS; Roma won DGA AND the best director Oscar, but stumbled in the top category. At least we can say that a film was finally strong enough to clear the final hurdle.

It took a film with very special characteristics to make that leap, and I think we need to acknowledge Parasite possessed a near-perfect profile. I don’t actually think it’s quite as GREAT a movie as many do, but a whole lot of critics sure thought so – it had enough narrative invention, social critique and bravura filmmaking (culminating in that extraordinary journey through the Biblical flood) that it dominated critics’ voting even while competing with a well-above-average field. On top of that, audiences went for it in a big way. Someone once said of Citizen Kane that it’s just more fun than most great movies, and I think Parasite falls into the same category. Bong Joon Ho’s a storyteller/entertainer above all, and he gave audiences such a good time that people came out of screenings saying they LOVED it. This is the kind of enthusiasm that can make legendary upsets happen.

And, talking of upsets, can we go to the best part of this?: the Directors Guild winner didn’t win best director. I know I spend more time on the DGA than most do, but there’s a reason: I came along in an era when the Directors’ Guild was virtually infallible. All the complaints I lodge against the TV awards, draining the suspense out of races? The DGA was the original suspense-killer. They started giving out awards, really, in 1950 (asterisk: earlier, they were on non-calendar-year basis, so both Mankiewicz and Rossen won for 1949 films). And the first time their winner failed to win the directing Oscar was 1968. Post-1956 till recently, their winners almost always (9 of 10, as I noted last week) won best picture, as well. Throw out those three years (’85, ’95, ’12) when their winner wasn’t nominated by AMPAS. In the 66 other years prior to the other night, only four times had their winners failed to nab the directing Oscar.

And it wasn’t as if the DGA choices merely ratified general consensus. Back in the 70s, The Last Picture Show seemed as logical a winner as The French Connection; ditto The Exorcist vis a vis The Sting. It took the DGA to lock one in over the other. In 1976, most suspense seemed to revolve around whether Network could top All the President’s Men – until the DGA went for John Avildsen, which presaged a Rocky sweep. The following year, Annie Hall seemed an absolutely impossible leap of taste for the Academy that had just chosen Rocky…but, once again, the DGA correctly told us it would happen. It’s weird: in the 70s, acting races were way more competitive than today – 1975 and 1979 are the only years I can remember all the betting favorites winning. But if you’d bet the DGA winner for film/director every year, you’d have notched 19 of 20 correct. Pretty much the opposite of our current situation.

So: does this startling win mean the Directors’ Guild no longer rules the roost? Magic 8 Ball says, too soon to say. We had upsets 2 out of 3 years 2000-2002, then not another real one till the other night. But stay tuned.

This year’s winner in the “things I was totally wrong about” sweepstakes: I never thought Joaquin Phoenix would be such a runaway winner. I thought, at minimum, he’d vie with Adam Driver all down the line. I’d say the sweep of the old-line critics’ groups for Antonio Banderas ended whatever chance Driver had; despite his dominating the second-tier groups, he couldn’t get enough real footing to steal focus from the popular wave that carried Phoenix.

Sub-category thing I missed was that Joker, counter-intuitively, turn out more to the Academy’s taste than Marriage Story. It’s there in the stats: 11 nominations to 5; a directing nomination vs. omission. I kept thinking Joker would suffer from a pincer movement – people who abhor comic books joining with those who hated downbeat 70s Scorsese to block it. Instead, it seems to have benefitted from both groups.

Speaking of Marriage Story: in another year, it might have gone into Streetcar/Network territory, all three of its acting nominees winning. The competitive landscape matters. (As Network can attest: Beatrice Straight wouldn’t have won in most years.) For that matter, Marriage Story might well have been the best picture choice some years. In fact, I’d make the argument Marriage Story, 1917, The Irishman, Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, and of course Parasite, might all have taken the best picture trophy in some years. Just for starters, last year.

Roma’s holding on to do as well as it did last year made many of us think Netflix had ceased to be a handicap, but this year’s results may signal the opposite. If there are enough strong candidates, voters are probably affected by visibility, and I think the contention of that anonymous voter, that Marriage Story and The Irishman suffered from not being in theatres and drawing publicized audiences, had something to do with them fading down the stretch. (Both films should have at least been factors in the screenplay races.)

Speaking of screenplay: it will remain a subject of wonder for me, that not only The Irishman but also Little Women – two films with Metacritic scores at 90-range – fell to the 58-score Jojo Rabbit. And don’t hit me with “but the people love it” – Jojo has struggled to get past $30 million, while Little Women has rocketed past $100 million. I promise this is the last time I’ll repeat the analogy, but Jojo is truly the Shawshank of its time: got a reputation for being popular without people ever going to see it in theatres.

Or is it the last gasp of the ‘We can’t get enough Holocaust” caucus?

Weirdest/most shocking thing of the whole season, for me? People my age, lifelong film fans, who’ve said to me, I never knew all that stuff about Judy Garland and Louis B. Mayer. I’ve been so gobsmacked by this, I couldn’t even ask snarky follow-ups. (Like, Have you heard Marilyn Monroe had self-image issues?) I know some of us live in bubbles, but this one truly startled me.

Brad Pitt’s glide-path through the season kept us from sufficiently noting: this was one of the best supporting actor slates of recent vintage. Also among the most illustrious, of course, but that, too, keeps us from focusing on just how high-calibre the competition was. Pitt gave an absolutely classic Brad performance – epitomizing his career and offering something special besides. Pesci came out of retirement to do something completely different from anything previous. Hanks created a fascinating, opaque character – a saint on one level, an enigma on another. Pacino and Hopkins, two actors of whom I’ve been weary for a long time, each delivered his best performance in decades. I don’t know where this year’s crew ranks among the best ever – like many, I’m partial to the 1993 bunch. But it’s in top ten discussion, and I remind all that Alan Alda, Timothee Chalamet, Tracy Letts and John Lithgow – easy nominees many years -- couldn’t even get a nibble.

Thomas Newman’s non-win for 1917 not only extends his losing streak, it ends a six-year streak of long-waiting below-the-line nominee finally getting an Oscar: Lubezki ’13, Desplat ’14, Morricone ’15, O’Connell ’16, Deakins ’17, Ruth Carter ’18. Let’s get it going again next year, Academy.

Feel free to add your own final thoughts on a decent year with an exciting finale. I’ll be off working on my subsequent piece.
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