Awards Season 2017

[mfunk9786]

There's just as much "Oscar bait" out there as there ever was, probably more. And as long as there are Oscars, there will be actors and filmmakers and producers and studios that will make decisions based on their hopes of winning Oscars. It can't possibly be an outdated term, it's just that the kinds of movies that win Oscars these days is somewhat different than in the past.

A24 seems to me like the new Oscar bait vanguard.

I do think though, if you're a Sean Baker or Greta Gerwig or Jordan Peele, you aren't expecting awards recognition (or even anyone seeing these films) when you're making them the way a Tom Hooper is when he's making The King's Speech - that's still a pretty significant distinction between today's "Oscar bait" and yesterday's

[Brian C]

I do think though, if you're a Sean Baker or Greta Gerwig or Jordan Peele, you aren't expecting awards recognition (or even anyone seeing these films) when you're making them the way a Tom Hooper is when he's making The King's Speech - that's still a pretty significant distinction between today's "Oscar bait" and yesterday's

Well, who knows? I think what you're basically doing here is attributing bad motives to the filmmakers you don't like so much and good motives to the filmmakers you do like. But I can't read minds and neither can you.

That said, at least two of the three movies you allude to here fit the present-day Oscar mold pretty snugly (and for the record, Lady Bird is my favorite of the nominees, so don't assume I'm knocking it).

[movielocke]

Other than get out, all of the BP nominees are awards product.

What does that mean?

It means these are, each individually, a commercial product that costs millions of dollars to manufacture (to be sold to millions of viewers).

they’re financed and produced by large multinational corporations and each film is given a staff of highly paid awards consultants who oversee budgets of millions of dollars to participate in the awards season campaigns and lobbying efforts pursuing recognition for the films.

It’s big business.

[mfunk9786]

Well, who knows? I think what you're basically doing here is attributing bad motives to the filmmakers you don't like so much and good motives to the filmmakers you do like.

Not at all! I was using A24 films to illustrate my point, and those happen to be ones I enjoyed - but my point was not at all that Tom Hooper making The King's Speech (another film I enjoyed!) and realizing as he made it that it was going to get awards eyeballs on it was a bad motive. I meant it's just an actual difference between what you correctly defined as today's Oscar bait vs what you correctly defined as yesterday's, not saying there's anything wrong with Hooper making a film with a decent budget and realizing it'd get a big push. Any filmmaker would love to be in that kind of scenario, and should.

[felipe]

If we assume box office as a way of measuring popularity (which seems reasonable) a Get Out win would literally the most popular film in the category since LotR. As much as being zeitgeisty this unquestionably got in by being too big to ignore.

Like Wonder Woman?

[Ribs]

A24's place is likely going to be what to the present what Weinstein/Miramax was to the late 90s what UA was to the late 70s - it's just a weird cyclical thing, it seems, that some medium-sized studio is able to come in and just overturn everything about the Oscars and win a lot more than everyone else. It's *the* studio - they screw up occasionally (Menashe's unlikely success is remarkable, but it outgrossing the generally more commercial A Ghost Story is embarrassing for the latter).

Neon was bought last week by a new company and have been on a bit of a spending spree at Sundance, seemingly outbidding anyone for any title they possibly want. It probably won't work but it's definitely interesting to see them really ratchet up their prescence.

[felipe]

Seriously. We wouldn't be having this conversation about any other nearly $200 mil grossing, popular, well reviewed movie. It isn't like this is some obscure flop.

But that's the point. $200 mil grossing, popular genre films rarely ever get nominated. So why would we not be cynical to the fact that a popular horror movie has been nominated for every major award there is and is seriously in contention for winning Best Picture?

[Brian C]

A24's place is likely going to be what to the present what Weinstein/Miramax was to the late 90s what UA was to the late 70s - it's just a weird cyclical thing, it seems, that some medium-sized studio is able to come in and just overturn everything about the Oscars and win a lot more than everyone else.

Orion was a huge Oscar player for awhile in the 80s/90s too - four wins (Amadeus, Platoon, Dances with Wolves, and The Silence of the Lambs) plus two other nominations. And then they died.

[Brian C]

Seriously. We wouldn't be having this conversation about any other nearly $200 mil grossing, popular, well reviewed movie. It isn't like this is some obscure flop.

But that's the point. $200 mil grossing, popular genre films rarely ever get nominated. So why would we not be cynical to the fact that a popular horror movie has been nominated for every major award there is and is seriously in contention for winning Best Picture?

I think that if you expand your criteria to include both "$200 million gross" and "universal critical acclaim", and not just the former, you'd actually have a list heavily populated with Best Picture nominees. Essentially you'd be missing a few Pixars and, say, The Dark Knight.

[felipe]

Seriously. We wouldn't be having this conversation about any other nearly $200 mil grossing, popular, well reviewed movie. It isn't like this is some obscure flop.

But that's the point. $200 mil grossing, popular genre films rarely ever get nominated. So why would we not be cynical to the fact that a popular horror movie has been nominated for every major award there is and is seriously in contention for winning Best Picture?

I think that if you expand your criteria to include both "$200 million gross" and "universal critical acclaim", and not just the former, you'd actually have a list heavily populated with Best Picture nominees. Essentially you'd be missing a few Pixars and, say, The Dark Knight.

What is "universal critical acclaim"? Thor: Ragnarok? Wonder Woman? It? Logan? Meanwhile, films like "Lion" usually get in with less-than-stellar reviews.

[wattsup32]

Other than get out, all of the BP nominees are awards product.

What does that mean?

It means these are, each individually, a commercial product that costs millions of dollars to manufacture (to be sold to millions of viewers).

they’re financed and produced by large multinational corporations and each film is given a staff of highly paid awards consultants who oversee budgets of millions of dollars to participate in the awards season campaigns and lobbying efforts pursuing recognition for the films.

It’s big business.

That definition you've given also includes Get Out ($5m production budget, $30m marketing budget--and this was as of August before awards push marketing began). If "awards product" is that broadly defined, then "awards product" isn't worth applying to any film or filmmaker. The list of films I can go see in as a theatrical release or in first release, and therefore qualify for awards, is all of the films (in the category of films we are talking about anyway).

I found all of the other concepts of "awards product", etc. being tossed about more useful. Even where we disagree about which films/filmmakers who'd make the list under any of the debated definitions, we could at least agree that the list at least excluded some films/filmmakers.

[Brian C]

What is "universal critical acclaim"? Thor: Ragnarok? Wonder Woman? It? Logan? Meanwhile, films like "Lion" usually get in with less-than-stellar reviews.

I don't think it's controversial to say that Get Out received a level of critical acclaim substantially higher than your usual $200 million grosser, including the movies that you named. Besides dominating year-end lists, the movie also received a higher level of support at time of release, as shown by both Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes.

[knives]

Seriously. We wouldn't be having this conversation about any other nearly $200 mil grossing, popular, well reviewed movie. It isn't like this is some obscure flop.

But that's the point. $200 mil grossing, popular genre films rarely ever get nominated. So why would we not be cynical to the fact that a popular horror movie has been nominated for every major award there is and is seriously in contention for winning Best Picture?

I think that if you expand your criteria to include both "$200 million gross" and "universal critical acclaim", and not just the former, you'd actually have a list heavily populated with Best Picture nominees. Essentially you'd be missing a few Pixars and, say, The Dark Knight.

Basically my thought. The critical and pop culture reaction was a lot more mellow for Wonder Woman. I mean, you didn't have Patty Jenkins getting interviewed by Trevor Noah months after release. To felipe's most recent point, the reason both qualities are needed is that no one will bother connecting a genre film to awards season without it. If you can't tell the Awards starting gate difference between Wonder Woman and Lion than you won't be able to get it.

[wattsup32]

[
I don't think it's controversial to say that Get Out received a level of critical acclaim substantially higher than your usual $200 million grosser, including the movies that you named. Besides dominating year-end lists, the movie also received a higher level of support at time of release, as shown by both Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes.

I will reiterate that Rotten Tomatoes says it is the 3rd best reviewed film of all-time (behind Wizard of Oz and Citizen Kane).

[Brian C]

Actually, on more investigation, I'm willing to concede that felipe might have more of a point than I realized. It turns out that Get Out has the third-lowest Metacritic score of the Best Picture nominees, taken from reviews that were mostly written at the time of the films' theatrical releases, which of course in Get Out's case was nearly a year ago at this point (but that's still substantially higher than all the films felipe mentioned).

Yet, as noted, it dominated the year-end lists. Of course, it might just be the kind of movie that naturally grows in people's esteem as time goes by. But frankly, it actually does strongly suggest that a lot of critics put their thumbs on the scale in its favor when compiling their year-end lists.

[Lost Highway]

[
I don't think it's controversial to say that Get Out received a level of critical acclaim substantially higher than your usual $200 million grosser, including the movies that you named. Besides dominating year-end lists, the movie also received a higher level of support at time of release, as shown by both Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes.

I will reiterate that Rotten Tomatoes says it is the 3rd best reviewed film of all-time (behind Wizard of Oz and Citizen Kane).

Thank you, we heard it the first time. Get Out deserves the good reviews it got, but nobody in their right mind takes Rotten Tomatoes aggregates seriously. They are fine for a rough critical consensus.

[felipe]

But that's the point. $200 mil grossing, popular genre films rarely ever get nominated. So why would we not be cynical to the fact that a popular horror movie has been nominated for every major award there is and is seriously in contention for winning Best Picture?

I think that if you expand your criteria to include both "$200 million gross" and "universal critical acclaim", and not just the former, you'd actually have a list heavily populated with Best Picture nominees. Essentially you'd be missing a few Pixars and, say, The Dark Knight.

Basically my thought. The critical and pop culture reaction was a lot more mellow for Wonder Woman. I mean, you didn't have Patty Jenkins getting interviewed by Trevor Noah months after release. To felipe's most recent point, the reason both qualities are needed is that no one will bother connecting a genre film to awards season without it. If you can't tell the Awards starting gate difference between Wonder Woman and Lion than you won't be able to get it.

But many people did connect Wonder Woman to awards season, right? Many people expected it to get important nominations. Was it because they felt the movie was way above other superhero offerings (such as Thor Ragnarok, great critical reception, no awards buzz), or was it because they were placing their bets on this movie getting awards due to gender issues? Of course that was before Lady Bird blew up and there was no need to nominate Jenkins anymore.
Get Out had awards buzz since it was released. How much of it was "I'm pretty sure this one will get nominated because of oscarssowhite"? Hidden figures had that exact same buzz last year as soon as it was announced.

[knives]

Actually, on more investigation, I'm willing to concede that felipe might have more of a point than I realized. It turns out that Get Out has the third-lowest Metacritic score of the Best Picture nominees, taken from reviews that were mostly written at the time of the films' theatrical releases, which of course in Get Out's case was nearly a year ago at this point (but that's still substantially higher than all the films felipe mentioned).

Yet, as noted, it dominated the year-end lists. Of course, it might just be the kind of movie that naturally grows in people's esteem as time goes by. But frankly, it actually does strongly suggest that a lot of critics put their thumbs on the scale in its favor when compiling their year-end lists.

I don't think comparing this to the rest of the field is particularly helpful especially in light of Ebert's dictum that I assume most follow through on which says to rate in comparison to similar films (e.g. a superhero films to a superhero films). The road to a Get Out nom would have to be different from say a Ladybird nom and the weight of the positive reviews are going to be different. Instead looking at other horror films like Split or popular blockbusters like Wonder Woman or even other African American authored films like Girls Trip makes more sense to me. Certainly by that measure, I assume, the Metacritic score would be an outlier.

Also with the Logan nom this might just be a really weird and genre friendly year.

[felipe]

Actually, on more investigation, I'm willing to concede that felipe might have more of a point than I realized. It turns out that Get Out has the third-lowest Metacritic score of the Best Picture nominees, taken from reviews that were mostly written at the time of the films' theatrical releases, which of course in Get Out's case was nearly a year ago at this point (but that's still substantially higher than all the films felipe mentioned).

Yet, as noted, it dominated the year-end lists. Of course, it might just be the kind of movie that naturally grows in people's esteem as time goes by. But frankly, it actually does strongly suggest that a lot of critics put their thumbs on the scale in its favor when compiling their year-end lists.

That is an interesting point, specially considering the two other films with lower scores are Darkest Hour and The Post, films that were a maybe in people's predictions, and however Get Out always seemed like a lock for Picture and Director, despite not having had as great a reception as other films that were in contention.

[Brian C]

I don't think comparing this to the rest of the field is particularly helpful especially in light of Ebert's dictum that I assume most follow through on which says to rate in comparison to similar films (e.g. a superhero films to a superhero films). The road to a Get Out nom would have to be different from say a Ladybird nom and the weight of the positive reviews are going to be different. Instead looking at other horror films like Split or popular blockbusters like Wonder Woman or even other African American authored films like Girls Trip makes more sense to me. Certainly by that measure, I assume, the Metacritic score would be an outlier.

Also with the Logan nom this might just be a really weird and genre friendly year.

I agree with this but at the same time, the horror genre is not exactly a fertile ground for critical favorites. If Get Out stood out from other movies of its genre to such an extent that many named it the best overall movie of the year, wouldn't it follow that Get Out's ratings would be even higher?

ETA: This is beside the point, but while I would agree that a lot of critics probably abide by Ebert's dictum, I think it's kinda dumb.

[wattsup32]

[
I don't think it's controversial to say that Get Out received a level of critical acclaim substantially higher than your usual $200 million grosser, including the movies that you named. Besides dominating year-end lists, the movie also received a higher level of support at time of release, as shown by both Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes.

I will reiterate that Rotten Tomatoes says it is the 3rd best reviewed film of all-time (behind Wizard of Oz and Citizen Kane).

Thank you, we heard it the first time. Get Out deserves the good reviews it got, but nobody in their right mind takes Rotten Tomatoes aggregates seriously. They are fine for a rough critical consensus.

Rough critical consensus was the exact point being discussed which made reiterating the statistic worthwhile.

[felipe]

Actually, on more investigation, I'm willing to concede that felipe might have more of a point than I realized. It turns out that Get Out has the third-lowest Metacritic score of the Best Picture nominees, taken from reviews that were mostly written at the time of the films' theatrical releases, which of course in Get Out's case was nearly a year ago at this point (but that's still substantially higher than all the films felipe mentioned).

Yet, as noted, it dominated the year-end lists. Of course, it might just be the kind of movie that naturally grows in people's esteem as time goes by. But frankly, it actually does strongly suggest that a lot of critics put their thumbs on the scale in its favor when compiling their year-end lists.

I don't think comparing this to the rest of the field is particularly helpful especially in light of Ebert's dictum that I assume most follow through on which says to rate in comparison to similar films (e.g. a superhero films to a superhero films). The road to a Get Out nom would have to be different from say a Ladybird nom and the weight of the positive reviews are going to be different. Instead looking at other horror films like Split or popular blockbusters like Wonder Woman or even other African American authored films like Girls Trip makes more sense to me. Certainly by that measure, I assume, the Metacritic score would be an outlier.

Also with the Logan nom this might just be a really weird and genre friendly year.

But even if we do compare it to other blockbusters, its score is 85 to Logan's 77. That doesn't seem like a big difference to me (keeping in mind Shape of water is 8 points below Lady Bird and might be seen as a favorite, for instance). And yet Logan was never seen as a possible Best Picture nominee. It had box office success and critical acclaim. It didn't have a fraction of the buzz Wonder Woman have. Don't you think that is connected to the minority issues?

[felipe]

[
I don't think it's controversial to say that Get Out received a level of critical acclaim substantially higher than your usual $200 million grosser, including the movies that you named. Besides dominating year-end lists, the movie also received a higher level of support at time of release, as shown by both Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes.

I will reiterate that Rotten Tomatoes says it is the 3rd best reviewed film of all-time (behind Wizard of Oz and Citizen Kane).

Wait. Wan't Lady Bird the best reviewed film of all time on Rotten Tomatoes? Followed by Paddington 2?

[McCrutchy]

I mean, going off memory and without looking at review data, the closest I can think of for Get Out would have to be something like Mad Max: Fury Road, which also had an opening outside of awards season and made lots of money by surprise--although surely Miller's film wasn't nearly as profitable, given its bloated budget--and people just kept talking about it for months and it stayed in the conversation until awards season. Then, as I recall, it shocked everybody by actually winning awards (as I recall, especially when it won Best Film from the National Board of Review), and that in turn, brought more nominations, which brought more awards, and suddenly, it was a nominee for Best Picture, despite being of a genre that the Academy notoriously dislikes.

[knives]

[
I don't think it's controversial to say that Get Out received a level of critical acclaim substantially higher than your usual $200 million grosser, including the movies that you named. Besides dominating year-end lists, the movie also received a higher level of support at time of release, as shown by both Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes.

I will reiterate that Rotten Tomatoes says it is the 3rd best reviewed film of all-time (behind Wizard of Oz and Citizen Kane).

Wait. Wan't Lady Bird the best reviewed film of all time on Rotten Tomatoes? Followed by Paddington 2?

That's where I think the type of reaction is important and harder to quantify. Logan, which did get a weird nomination and some mild buzz on release making it an outlier to some extent as well, was being praised as a good example of genre while Get Out was on elevating genre through theme. Now of course that shows the tightwire act of if its success today was through tokenism or critical love hence our conversation, but I assume that in general it was the quality of execution of the themes rather than merely the themes themselves which has caused this success.

I don't think comparing this to the rest of the field is particularly helpful especially in light of Ebert's dictum that I assume most follow through on which says to rate in comparison to similar films (e.g. a superhero films to a superhero films). The road to a Get Out nom would have to be different from say a Ladybird nom and the weight of the positive reviews are going to be different. Instead looking at other horror films like Split or popular blockbusters like Wonder Woman or even other African American authored films like Girls Trip makes more sense to me. Certainly by that measure, I assume, the Metacritic score would be an outlier.

Also with the Logan nom this might just be a really weird and genre friendly year.

I agree with this but at the same time, the horror genre is not exactly a fertile ground for critical favorites. If Get Out stood out from other movies of its genre to such an extent that many named it the best overall movie of the year, wouldn't it follow that Get Out's ratings would be even higher?

ETA: This is beside the point, but while I would agree that a lot of critics probably abide by Ebert's dictum, I think it's kinda dumb.

Which is kind of my whole point. A film like Get Out doesn't usually produce films that are liked beyond their genre mechanics. Also, a problem with using Metacritic even is that it doesn't really quantify for films with mixed reactions. If half the people thought it was a 100% film and half though it was a 50% film then it would get a 75% (I'm oversimplifying of course) which wouldn't reflect a year end enthusiasm even though that 100% half obviously would be crazy enthusiastic for it at year's end. Finally, I wouldn't be surprised if your idea of the film stewing with discussion on the film and maybe rewatches on DVD inflating impressions of it.