American Society of Cinematographers

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Sabin
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Re: American Society of Cinematographers

Post by Sabin »

The ASC Awards have an okay record as an Oscar forecaster. Over the last ten years, they're predicted six of the last ten winners for Best Cinematography (1917, BLADE RUNNER 2049, THE REVENANT, BIRDMAN, GRAVITY, INCEPTION). And some of their recent winners (SKYFALL, LION, COLD WAR) were clearly not going to beat their competition (LIFE OF PI, LA LA LAND, ROMA)

Does this represent a chink in NOMADLAND's armor for Best Cinematography? Maybe. The Academy tends to conflate Best Cinematography with "prettiest picture" which usually means that the movie that wins Best Cinematography is also up for Best Production Design. This is generally seen as the reason why CHILDREN OF MEN lost Best Cinematography to PAN'S LABYRINTH. Over the last ten years, two of the movies that won the Oscar for Best Cinematography also won for Production Design (LA LA LAND, HUGO) and seven were nominated (INCEPTION, LIFE OF PI, GRAVITY, THE REVENANT, BLADE RUNNER 2049, ROMA, 1917). The one remaining film is BIRDMAN, which speaks to the Academy's love of "one-shot" films. This year, the "prettiest picture" would likely be NOMADLAND with its beautiful sunrises and sunsets, but NOMADLAND isn't nominated for Best Production Design -- and MANK is. If love for NOMADLAND isn't as strong as some think, look for MANK to pick this one up.

But I think it's the membership thing as well.
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Re: American Society of Cinematographers

Post by Mister Tee »

Apparently the British Society of Cinematographers also went for Mank.

BAFTA, we recall, went for Nomadland. Someone at Awards Watch documented the years in this millennium where BAFTA and ASC disagreed. As you can see, there's no real pattern to what then wins the Oscar: sometimes the SAG choice prevails, sometimes BAFTA's, and sometimes something else entirely. Though the last three tines out, it's gone BAFTA.

Oscar winner in bold.

2018: ASC - Cold War; BAFTA - Roma
2016: ASC - Lion; BAFTA - La La Land
2012: ASC - Skyfall; BAFTA - Life of Pi
2011: ASC - The Tree of Life; BAFTA - The Artist (Oscar: Hugo)
2010: ASC - Inception; BAFTA - True Grit
2009: ASC - The White Ribbon; BAFTA - The Hurt Locker (Oscar: Avatar)
2007: ASC - There Will Be Blood; BAFTA - No Country for Old Men
2004: ASC - A Very Long Engagement; BAFTA - Collateral (Oscar: The Aviator)
2003: ASC - Seabiscuit; BAFTA - LOTR: Return of the King (Oscar: Master & Commander)
2000: ASC - The Patriot; BAFTA - Gladiator (Oscar: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)
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Re: American Society of Cinematographers

Post by Mister Tee »

And the winner is...Erik Messerschmidt for Mank.

According to the listings at Deadline.com, Richards is the only one of the five nominees not an ASC member? Which would explain this. (Along with the ASC's not-infrequent tendency to throw curves that have nothing to do with the Oscar winner.)
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Re: American Society of Cinematographers

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Well, Harry, your mileage may vary. I enjoy comic book adaptations more than most. However, Suicide Squad was mediocre at best. What Cathy Yan does with Birds of Prey is almost as revealing as Promising Young Woman in the way it embraces its bonkers feminism. The two main villains are a megalomaniac and his serial killer henchman.

Harley begins her emancipation from the abusive Joker in a most explosive fashion and everything she does is purely selfish, but with an undercurrent of sisterhood. At every turn, she asserts her right to be self-sufficient and independent of the men who wish to control her. The set pieces are all excellently crafted with the design for the funhouse fight sequence being the most insanely fascinating with subtle and not-so-subtle feminist symbolism everywhere. I can honestly say I've never really seen anything like it. It's Deadpool in a less-over-the-top, pro-feminism kind of way.

From my experience, most straight men who've seen it seem to dislike it with a passion. They find ways to put it down that stretch credulity and I would guess that part of their hate of the film comes from its overt feminism. That's not to say that the film is perfect. Far from it, but I would gladly live another day in this universe that Yan created. It's better than nearly everything in the Zack Snyder DC Extended Universe with the exception of, IMO, the original Wonder Woman. But again, I make no guarantees you'll like it, especially if you don't particularly care much for comic book adaptations, especially the superhero ones.

This film is where Robbie fully comes into her own as the character. She's insane, but isn't the one-note joke factory she was in Suicide Squad.
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Re: American Society of Cinematographers

Post by Sabin »

rolotomasi99 wrote
Has anyone seen CHERRY? After the truly awful (and sometimes hilarious) reviews, I was hoping to avoid it. If it picks up an Oscar nom, I will need to check it out, but I am curious if someone can confirm it is as terrible as the critics say.
A critic buddy of mine gave it a "D," said it's just laughable. But it's a very visual, slick film.
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Re: American Society of Cinematographers

Post by rolotomasi99 »

Sabin wrote:In this case, Cherry might seem like a wacko pick but considering his decades of work, I wouldn't be surprised to see Newton Thomas Siegel walk away with it.
Has anyone seen CHERRY? After the truly awful (and sometimes hilarious) reviews, I was hoping to avoid it. If it picks up an Oscar nom, I will need to check it out, but I am curious if someone can confirm it is as terrible as the critics say.
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Re: American Society of Cinematographers

Post by HarryGoldfarb »

OscarGuy wrote:I would love to see Birds of Prey recognized. It really is a unique and superb work. The photography, production design, costumes, and makeup & hair are all top notch and I would love to see them nominated. Unfortunately, I think they'll dismiss the film.
Really? I have been actively avoiding it, there are way too many films I have to and want to see to include this, and as a predecessor, Suicide Squad was not as entertaining as it should have been, but now I am mildly intrigued.
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Sabin
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Re: American Society of Cinematographers

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Mister Tee wrote
I was meaning the Oscar category. The ASC can always throw a curve -- though less so recently, than the days when they picked The Patriot or Hoffa.
Copy that. Agree.
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Re: American Society of Cinematographers

Post by Mister Tee »

Sabin wrote:
Mister Tee wrote
All kind of moot, in the end. Nomadland has this category cold.
I'm actually not sure. Joshua James Richards may be ASC but he's very much an outsider in a guild that certainly likes to honor their own.
I was meaning the Oscar category. The ASC can always throw a curve -- though less so recently, than the days when they picked The Patriot or Hoffa.
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Re: American Society of Cinematographers

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I would love to see Birds of Prey recognized. It really is a unique and superb work. The photography, production design, costumes, and makeup & hair are all top notch and I would love to see them nominated. Unfortunately, I think they'll dismiss the film.
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Sabin
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Re: American Society of Cinematographers

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Mister Tee wrote
All kind of moot, in the end. Nomadland has this category cold.
I'm actually not sure. Joshua James Richards may be ASC but he's very much an outsider in a guild that certainly likes to honor their own. Over the last decade, they've honored:

- Wally Pfister x1 (prev. nom: The Dark Knight, Batman Begins)
- Emmanuel Lubeszki x4 (prev. nom: Sleepy Hollow; prev. win: Children of Men)
- Roger Deakins x3 (prev. nom: Fargo, Kundun, O Brother, Where Art Tho?, The Assassination of Jesse James..., No Country for Old Men, The Reader, Revolutionary Road, True Grit, Prisoners, Unbroken, Sicario; prev. win: The Shawshank Redemption, The Man Who Wasn't There)

The two winners that break this tradition are Greig Fraser and Lukasz Zal. Fraser had been kicking around in interesting movies over the course of the decade (Zero Dark Thirty) and Zal was a previous Oscar nominee for Ida. Both of them were undeniably new to the game but in both cases, they might have gone with Fraser because Linus Sandgren was more of an outsider than Greig Fraser and the prospect of voting for the Best Director for Best Cinematography was too much.

In this case, Cherry might seem like a wacko pick but considering his decades of work, I wouldn't be surprised to see Newton Thomas Siegel walk away with it.
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Re: American Society of Cinematographers

Post by Mister Tee »

So...

Going to be totally honest: I had to IMDB to find out what the hell Cherry is.

When there's a surprise like this, normally I'd expect it from a movie with a Metacritic score higher than 46.

And, if they wanted to nominate Sigel, why not Da 5 Bloods?

But rolo is right: it's bland best picture contenders that show up at ASC but get blackballed by the cinematographers' branch. Cherry is almost certain to show up on Monday, for whatever reason.'

All kind of moot, in the end. Nomadland has this category cold.
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Re: American Society of Cinematographers

Post by Sabin »

I think the runners up will either be MINARI or JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH. And currently, I'd put my money on MINARI. Lachlan Milne has a strong resume to his credit with work on Stranger Things, The Hunt for the Wilder People, and more. On the other hand, Sean Bobbitt has a strong resume to his name as well and somehow an Oscar has evaded him.
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Re: American Society of Cinematographers

Post by rolotomasi99 »

This precursor usually matches pretty closely (some years exactly) to the Oscars. The nominees who end up missing at Oscars are often from Best Picture nominees who had nice but uninteresting cinematography (FORD V FERRARI, BRIDGE OF SPIES, THE IMITATION GAME). Lately the Oscars have been selecting some truly inspired and sometimes shocking alternatives (THE LIGHTHOUSE, IDA, NEVER LOOK AWAY).

My guess is that THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7 will be the Best Picture nominee replaced at the Oscars by...what? CHERRY actually would be a perfect choice if the ASC had not beaten the Oscars to it.

MINARI would not be as obscure as some of the more recent alternate nominees, but it would certainly seem more fitting

Maybe DA 5 BLOODS will end up with a lone cinematography nomination after being considered a major player in Best Picture, Director, Actor, etc.

FIRST COW would certainly fit the bill as a relatively obscure movie to choose.

If they really wanted to raise some eyebrows, I have read that Matthew Libatique did some fun work on BIRDS OF PREY.

Has anyone seen ANOTHER ROUND? Did that have nice cinematography?
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Sabin
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American Society of Cinematographers

Post by Sabin »

Pretty late rolling these nominees out again. I wonder why that is.

Feature Film
Erik Messerschmidt, ASC (“Mank”)
Phedon Papamichael, ASC, GSC (“The Trial of the Chicago 7”)
Joshua James Richards (” Nomadland”)
Newton Thomas Sigel, ASC (“Cherry”)
Dariusz Wolski, ASC (“News of the World”)

Spotlight
Katelin Arizmendi (“Swallow”)
Aurélien Marra (“Two of Us”)
Andrey Naydenov (“Dear Comrades!”)

Documentary
Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw (“The Truffle Hunters”)
Viktor Kosakovskiy and Egil Håskjold Larsen (” Gunda”)
Gianfranco Rosi (“Notturno”)
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