Awards Season 2020

[therewillbeblus]

Searchlight has to be kicking themselves for letting Wes Anderson hold onto his film for another year-- in a year with no real emphatic frontrunner (the best we have is people saying, "Nomadland, I guess"), an auteur reward run at the Oscars would have been easy as pie this year

Assuming it would have lived up to everyone's hopes, a clean sleep by a Wes Anderson movie would've been awesome. Too bad PTA didn't start his new film earlier, if it came out this year, it could've done the same.

Mike Mills' C'mon C'mon was reportedly finished and shelved too. I would have loved to have seen one of his films deservedly pick up some awards, which feels more of a dark horse in the race compared to those other two cult artists

[hearthesilence]

Minari was snubbed out of a nod for international film because it was made in the US. A few years ago a non-US film was snubbed out of a nod because it was in English. This rule has got to go. It's unfair to the filmmakers to have to lose recognition from the biggest film awards due to some silly technicality that many other awards don't have.

I think they're happier with a Best Picture nom instead.

I don't know about that - until Parasite's unexpected breakthrough, the Oscars kind of needed that category to honor non-American films that typically were overlooked or marginalized for being outside of the American film network, never mind Hollywood. And I was under the impression Minari was more or less an all-American production - the director, the producers and lead actor are all Americans, and the project was conceived and brought to life through American channels (mostly Sundance's network of insiders, I believe). Granted it's dealing with a minority that's often overlooked, and much of it is in Korean, but it's pretty ensconced in the business here in America.

[hearthesilence]

Nothing for First Cow?

Not surprised - honestly, it's likely Reichardt will NEVER get nominated unless she a) gets unexpectedly hired on a made-for-awards type project the way, say, Gus Van Sant was hired for Good Will Hunting or b) gets roped in as a co-writer or co-producer on something that has a better chance like a Todd Haynes film. I don't think her own films are the type that ever gets recognized by the Academy. Michelle Williams didn't even get nominated for Wendy and Lucy, and IMHO she crushed the competition that year including what wound up as a thoroughly mediocre and controversial winner. But First Cow was my favorite American film distributed last year, so I'm not exactly thriller about it myself.

[therewillbeblus]

Lily Gladstone was a pretty glaring snub for Certain Women too, especially after effusive praise that recognized her elsewhere, and really indicated how all aspects of Reichardt's films were being overlooked. I could see the academy sobering up and nominating her down the line though.

[captveg]

Searchlight has to be kicking themselves for letting Wes Anderson hold onto his film for another year-- in a year with no real emphatic frontrunner (the best we have is people saying, "Nomadland, I guess"), an auteur reward run at the Oscars would have been easy as pie this year

I think this is where the box office success of Grand Budapest may have hurt the awards season potential of The Last Dispatch by foregoing this year's more open window.

On the other hand, 2021 is shaping up to also be somewhat vexing, especially if it only has 10 months worth of nominees.

[therewillbeblus]

Nah, we're in for a cultural renaissance of arthouse films shelved or written within the last year. I fully expect to be swimming in art as normal by the Fall

[TheKieslowskiHaze]

Ditto to those pointing out the First Cow snub. It was the best of the year.

I'd add that, in a perfect world, Sidney Flanigan for Never Rarely Sometimes Always would be a front-runner to win Best Actress. But she's not even nominated. Could this be why?

[Never Cursed]

C'mon, between the pandemic and their release dates, the Hittman and the Reichardt were never getting nominated here regardless of quality (or ultra-conservative voters)

[therewillbeblus]

Of course not, the word “snub” is overused here (I only referred to Gladstone as such because she was seriously in contention that year). In “a perfect world” Ema would be nominated for international film, Charlie Kaufman would be nominated for original screenplay, and those are actually pretty realistic!

[The Narrator Returns]

From Kyle Buchanan on Twitter, more than 100 Hollywood publicity firms are encouraging their clients to avoid the Golden Globes until the HFPA fixes its issues with discrimination and corruption.

[hearthesilence]

I'd add that, in a perfect world, Sidney Flanigan for Never Rarely Sometimes Always would be a front-runner to win Best Actress. But she's not even nominated. Could this be why?

I missed this until I came across an old review on it months after the fact, so I headed to Metacritic to find more and was greeted by a stunning ZERO point eight user rating. Even the worst pieces of shit score at least a few whole user points on Metacritic, and they normally don't have anywhere near 1000+ user ratings either, so it was easy to guess what was going on without looking at the comments (which I still haven't).

[Big Ben]

I'd add that, in a perfect world, Sidney Flanigan for Never Rarely Sometimes Always would be a front-runner to win Best Actress. But she's not even nominated. Could this be why?

I missed this until I came across an old review on it months after the fact, so I headed to Metacritic to find more and was greeted by a stunning ZERO point eight user rating. Even the worst pieces of shit score at least a few whole user points on Metacritic, and they normally don't have anywhere near 1000+ user ratings either, so it was easy to guess what was going on without looking at the comments (which I still haven't).

Of the fifteen hundred plus negative ones there are only three written ones and they are exactly what you think they are.

More on topic though I think the film just got outright snubbed.

[TheKieslowskiHaze]

C'mon, between the pandemic and their release dates, the Hittman and the Reichardt were never getting nominated here regardless of quality (or ultra-conservative voters)

I truly thought noms were on the way, but, clearly, I was wrong.

First Cow won the NYFCC Award for Best Picture. Pretty rare that that winner doesn't get a Best Pic Oscar nod; kinda unthinkable that it gets zero Oscar nominations at all.

Maybe someone with more endurance than me can go through this list of NYFCC winners and see if there is any other winner that subsequently received no Oscar attention. I wouldn't be surprised if First Cow is the first and only.

[knives]

It is indeed the first.

[therewillbeblus]

Wow, well it's been a crazy shitty year, so pretty on-brand

[Never Cursed]

My comments still stand - no way First Cow would have come close to winning that award in anything resembling a normal year. Had it (or Never Rarely Sometimes Always) been released mere weeks later, they would be complete non-entities, for the Oscars or the NYFCC or any awards race.

[domino harvey]

My comments still stand - no way First Cow would have come close to winning that award in anything resembling a normal year. Had it (or Never Rarely Sometimes Always) been released mere weeks later, they would be complete non-entities, for the Oscars or the NYFCC or any awards race.

Indeed. As ever, there’s a lot of people with curious ideas about what the Oscars are.

In other news, LOL @ the people in the industry responsible for feeding the Golden Globes monster suddenly acting like those awards could ever have existed without their total complicity

[swo17]

To be clear, the point of my original post was not to gripe so much as to merely note that if Reichardt can't even get in with one of her better films in the one year when only like 10 movies came out, that really says it all about what her chances have always been

[Boosmahn]

Why do think she didn't have much of a chance? I've only seen Night Moves, Wendy and Lucy, and First Cow from her, and they've all been (at least) good. Her work seems to be on the slower side, but the Academy has certainly awarded "slow" films before.

[brundlefly]

This year's obviously an exception as far as direct campaigning goes, and I could be wrong, but I just don't get the vibe from Reichardt that she's the sort of schmoozy political creature that aims to make herself available for awards season. Couple that with the fact her films are shot away from LA and NYC and are unlikely to support the employment of hordes of invested Academy members, they'd have to have the sort of universal appeal that a Kelly Reichardt film never would to have a chance. Like swo said, a year when only ten movies got released was her best shot, and unfortunately this year she made one without Michelle Williams in it. Only real chance would have been an Oscars where "Best Cow" was a category, and even that may have seen some serious competition from the Shaun the Sheep flick (which may or may not have a cow, dunno, don't @me).

And as much as I would have loved it to have happened, I don't think Gladstone was ever seriously in play for Certain Women. Even though the field was weak, other than the win with the LA Film Critics she mostly only scored mentions even from third-tier critic associations. Sure she got nom'd for the Spirits (and lost to Molly Shannon in a group that was... interesting?) and for "breakthrough" (lost to Anna Taylor-Joy) at the Gothams, but as an unfamiliar actress who shared time with Kristen Stewart in 1/3rd of an anthology film I suspect she fell behind K-Stew and a second Williams nod as far as also-rans went. And they all probably fell far behind Janelle Monae and who can remember who else. (Not Molly Shannon, though.)

[Pavel]

A quick look at the Gold Derby archives suggests that Gladstone was ranked at number 33, with 12 people (out of roughly 4,500 participants) predicting a nom

[TheKieslowskiHaze]

My comments still stand - no way First Cow would have come close to winning that award in anything resembling a normal year. Had it (or Never Rarely Sometimes Always) been released mere weeks later, they would be complete non-entities, for the Oscars or the NYFCC or any awards race.

I should have been more clear; I tried to concede your point in my last post. I'm used to a world in which a NYFCC win is a sign of momentum, but that clearly did not apply this year.

[felipe]

Rough year for obvious reasons.

Searchlight has to be kicking themselves for letting Wes Anderson hold onto his film for another year-- in a year with no real emphatic frontrunner (the best we have is people saying, "Nomadland, I guess"), an auteur reward run at the Oscars would have been easy as pie this year

This is a really good point but nonetheless I have to wonder how well the Anderson would have done (assuming it would have been as well-received as a typical Anderson film). This is a remarkably esoteric list of nominees, and while COVID obviously has a lot to do with what movies were available in the first place, it also seems like Oscar voters have been trending in this direction for awhile anyway. Anderson may already be an outdated relic among this collection of voters, as much as I personally love him.

But was the list of contenders considerably different than if would've been if not for Covid? Most of the movies that were pushed back were big studio blockbusters and not really strong Oscar contenders.

[Brian C]

Kind of my point, wasn’t it? If you bold the whole sentence instead of just one part, I think that becomes more clear.

[felipe]

Kind of my point, wasn’t it? If you bold the whole sentence instead of just one part, I think that becomes more clear.

Yes, I see it now.

It's just that many seem to believe this is a weaker batch of nominees because of "all the movies" that got pushed back to 2021 due to the pandemic. But besides the Anderson film and maybe West Side Story, what other Oscar hopefuls got pushed back? It's not like anyone was expecting Black Widow or A Quiet Place 2 to score major nominations.