Awards Season 2021

[DarkImbecile]

Up until last year (which took a huge ratings nosedive for obvious reasons), they were still basically always one of the two or three biggest non-NFL broadcasts of the year, so I would imagine they’ll see an improvement over last year’s ratings and convince themselves it’s because people hate film editors or something.

Another problem, as Mark Harris wrote earlier:

[hearthesilence]

They've done so many tweaks over the last 15 years or so to the traditional format, I'm guessing pretty much none of them "worked" since they never lasted beyond a handful of broadcasts. There's only so much you can do for an awards show, and ratings are only going to get tougher given the way viewing habits have culturally changed...maybe it's time to look for other sources of revenue instead of relying so much on one TV broadcast?

[Brian C]

I think a lot of the problem here is just the movies. When I was a younger man, the Oscars were all about a bunch of big movies, a couple of smaller dark horses, and all the stars that could plausibly be nominated. This year is better than last year, but we're looking at ... one? movie that broke through to the casual public. And in a lot of ways there's no such thing as movie stars anymore, at least not in the sense that you can advertise who's all going to be there and expect that to break through to casual viewers.

And, I mean, I don't know what the solution is here. The studios have all but punted on making more than 1-2 movies each that have awards aspirations. If more were made, it's not clear that the general public would want to see them in large numbers anyway. And Academy voters have seemingly decided that they're uninterested in using the Oscars as advertising for Hollywood, instead focusing on making an endless series of empty self-congratulatory social statements. For that matter, it's not clear that "Hollywood" exists anymore in any real way anyway.

I guess, in short, the Oscars are a conceptually bad fit for this particular cultural moment. As noted, this year's ratings will be higher than last year's by default, but fundamentally, the Oscars are selling something that no one wants to buy anymore. With extraordinarily few exceptions, the industry has collectively stopped trying to make movies that mean enough to people that they care about whether or not they win awards. I mean, Belfast is the crowd-pleaser of the bunch and it made less than $10 million at the US box office. Pandemic or no, that's just sad.

Anyway, like I say, when I was younger, the Oscars seemed just incredibly important to me. I wouldn't have missed them for anything if I could help it. But nowadays? I guess I'll watch them if I'm home. But if something else comes up? I won't hesitate to make plans that will cause me to miss them. If someone asks me why they should bother watching the show, what on earth could I possibly tell them?

[domino harvey]

I know people here don't like it but Don't Look Up was by far the most widely seen film nominated for Best Picture since probably Black Panther. So more like two with Dune. Your point doesn't change much with that correction though!

[Brian C]

Fair enough! I remember some discussion about Don't Look Up around the time of its release but its moment seemed to come and go awfully fast - like, within days - for a movie that was so widely available. But point taken.

Apropos of nothing, I just pulled up the IMDb desktop site for the first time in a long time, after relying on the mobile version exclusively since who knows when, and HOLY GOD is it unreadable.

[domino harvey]

I should say, to pick up what Brian's laying down, I care a lot less these days too (my record of having seen all Best Picture nominees has been incomplete for I think four years now!). But in general I find myself caring less about keeping up with most new films when there are so many unseen films from eras and national cinemas/movements I do care far more about. I'm officially getting old, and I didn't consent to it!

[Ribs]

I know people here don't like it but Don't Look Up was by far the most widely seen film nominated for Best Picture since probably Black Panther. So more like two with Dune. Your point doesn't change much with that correction though!

This seems like fairly extreme hyperbole - I see no reason or compelling evidence to think Don’t Look Up was more seen then, for example, King Richard. There will be reporting on general public awareness surveys soon I think, which I think will be stronger than the anecdotal evidence and using search engine trends (though I think it’s obvious to anyone that other than Car Power of the Dog will absolutely have the least awareness and has clearly been seen by less people then even Nomadland, the least seen Best Picture winner and one of the least seen nominees in history). (Last year’s surveys found Mank the least known of the Best Picture nominees). The crisis as I see it a continued choice from the Academy to pick movies like Belfast and Dog over more popular options. Had things just gone a few votes the other way and La La Land and 1917 were recent giant hit Oscar movies I think more people would care about the results, but as of this year the highest grossing BP winner of the past ten years will be Green Book, and yet people still get mad at it like it wasn’t this gigantic hit audiences loved (that eventually made tons of money in Asia also, for whatever reason). I don’t really know what point I’m getting at but I think there have been plenty of gigantic hit movies that were “worthy” enough to be in the conversation that didn’t win that, had they won, would have provided everyday viewers more reason to care next year.

I will also say it seems odd to mitigate the short categories when Riz Ahmed is undoubtebly going to win one of the prizes this year, but also 100% this decision will be redacted within a week so who really cares.

[soundchaser]

Based solely on this forum, if the Oscars don’t nominate Marry Me next year they’re missing a trick.

[domino harvey]

I know people here don't like it but Don't Look Up was by far the most widely seen film nominated for Best Picture since probably Black Panther. So more like two with Dune. Your point doesn't change much with that correction though!

This seems like fairly extreme hyperbole - I see no reason or compelling evidence to think Don’t Look Up was more seen then, for example, King Richard.

https://deadline.com/2022/01/dont-look- ... 234908110/

[tenia]

The point of Oscars nominating big movies is coming back regularly but there are many times in the 80s and 90s when Box office returns for the nominated weren't far from the 2020s ones.
Not that anyone should care though, except if one want to go from there to extrapolate what it could mean about the quality of the US Box Office top 20 movies these pas few years.

[Ribs]

I know people here don't like it but Don't Look Up was by far the most widely seen film nominated for Best Picture since probably Black Panther. So more like two with Dune. Your point doesn't change much with that correction though!

This seems like fairly extreme hyperbole - I see no reason or compelling evidence to think Don’t Look Up was more seen then, for example, King Richard.

https://deadline.com/2022/01/dont-look- ... 234908110/

There’s no reason to suggest any of these numbers possibly bear any resemblance to reality. Until there’s independent public interest research that one of the trades will inevitably publish, the best way to interpret general interest when titles are predominantly streaming is usually with something like Google activity, where Don’t Look Up while more popular then the other nominated films of this year has not approached the peaks of films like Star is Born, Joker, or even Parasite in the past few years. I just specifically find the statement comparing its performance to Black Panther completely unjustified.

[tenia]

Google activity and other Parrot-like research are heavily biased because Pareto etc, ie internet discussions and reality of what people are doing in a representative manner aren't correlated enough. Netflix figures, while limited in some technical manners and not sourced from independant places (though said to be independantly audited), remains hard data though. Based on these watching hours and the movie's duration, that'd approximate 12m full-length viewings (some of those possibly by multiple people in front of the screen).

This being written, Black Panther sold at least 72m tickets domestically alone, which looks like a completetely different league.

[domino harvey]

This seems like fairly extreme hyperbole - I see no reason or compelling evidence to think Don’t Look Up was more seen then, for example, King Richard.

https://deadline.com/2022/01/dont-look- ... 234908110/

There’s no reason to suggest any of these numbers possibly bear any resemblance to reality. Until there’s independent public interest research that one of the trades will inevitably publish, the best way to interpret general interest when titles are predominantly streaming is usually with something like Google activity, where Don’t Look Up while more popular then the other nominated films of this year has not approached the peaks of films like Star is Born, Joker, or even Parasite in the past few years. I just specifically find the statement comparing its performance to Black Panther completely unjustified.

I have no idea why you are riding this so hard, but when presented with actual evidence, you reply with an insistence that it’s wrong and your feelings are right, so I have no interest in continuing this “completely unjustified” discussion with you.

This being written, Black Panther sold at least 72m tickets domestically alone, which looks like a completetely different league.

I said “since” in that it’s probably the most widely seen since one of the most demonstrably popular films of all time was nominated, not that it’s more widely seen than it.

[therewillbeblus]

Even if you doubt the specific data, stating “no reason” to suggest Don’t Look Up’s numbers were higher than most noms seems like an unnecessary game of devil’s advocate. Just ignoring all the actual numbers, anecdotally, I’ve been absolutely shocked by how many people I know, who don’t like or watch movies, decided to watch that film in its entirety on Netflix between Christmas and mid-January. It feels like every client, ex-coworker, etc. has been texting or bringing up the movie in our conversations because they know I love film and want to know what I thought of it- It’s such a long film for so many of these people to put on and finish (unsurprisingly, for many reasons, most didn’t like it) but I guess that star-studded cast + convenience will do it!

[willoneill]

My organization has a weekly management meeting where we rotate the Chair role. My last turn came up the day after the Oscar nominations, so for the ice breaker I went with "tell me which Oscar nominated film you liked the most of most want to see." (and I put the list up on the Zoom screen). No one said Don't Look Up, a couple women said West Side Story, one guy said Dune because he read the book in high school, my boss said Licorice Pizza because he likes pizza, and the rest said Power of the Dog.

That's my anecdotal evidence of popularity.

[soundchaser]

I don’t understand why the Academy feels the need to announce these changes ahead of the telecast. It seems a smarter move to just do them and face the inevitable backlash after the ceremony (as happened with last year’s Best Actor fiasco) rather than prolong it for weeks and have to reverse course.

[therewillbeblus]

That's my anecdotal evidence of popularity.

We're not talking about popularity, but about how many eyes have seen the film itself

[willoneill]

That's my anecdotal evidence of popularity.

We're not talking about popularity, but about how many eyes have seen the film itself

Within my specific context, they're one and the same, or at the very least very much inter-related. I'm telling you what they've seen or intend to watch. No one had seen Don't Look Up, no one expressed an interest in seeing Don't Look Up.

[movielocke]

I should say, to pick up what Brian's laying down, I care a lot less these days too (my record of having seen all Best Picture nominees has been incomplete for I think four years now!). But in general I find myself caring less about keeping up with most new films when there are so many unseen films from eras and national cinemas/movements I do care far more about. I'm officially getting old, and I didn't consent to it!

I feel seen. I still haven't caught up to last years mess of nominated movies.

I think the oscars declination problem is multifaceted but it mostly has to do with how Awards Pushes have been money-balled and the predictable game theory results of everyone pursuing a maximal nomination strategy.

Studios don't make big pushes on blockbusters any more because analytics on the preponderance of industry awards means they can predict with strong accuracy what films have the highest percentage of getting nominations and blockbusters are low percentage at gaining awards traction. Dollars invested in awards pushes are therefore "better" spent on non blockbusters that have high percentage of gaining awards traction.

Every studio has switched their awards pushes to go after those high percentage plays which creates a circular feedback loop that has resulted in the current situation of the Academy Spirit Awards.

for example, Disney will invest and push Saving Mr. Banks rather than Winter Soldier or Guardians of the Galaxy (those two are big films that used to be the sort of film that might get nominated in the 70s and 80s and 90s and 00s, but neither are films that got a dollar of studio support in an awards push in the current era).

there's a financial element too, a million pushing a marvel movie won't yield a million in more money, but a million pushing a awards-only movie could yield millions in box office revenue, as instead of grossing a few hundred thousand it might gross a high 7 figures. Classic game theory result, everyone pursues these strategies and the oscars as an award nosedives as a worst outcome for everyone.

Why is an awards push so important? Voters have to be given a narrative directly of what to vote for and why by studios pushing awards--that is what "awards season" is all about. Alongside that, Critics have to be given a narrative to chase, because feeding the critics the narrative will feed the public the narrative but will also downstream feed the voters indirectly the same narrative--win-win because Repetition yields results.

So awards pushes are crucial to creating the "permission structure" for voters to nominate and award films. The abandonment of awards pushes for big films means there's no permission structure for anyone in the academy to vote for Spider-man No Way Home when nominating best picture. Voters correctly assume doing so will be a wasted vote--like voting for Jill Stein--and instead vote to nominate West Side Story or CODA which those studios have crafted a permission structure for.

Twenty-ish years ago, the opposite was true, academy members might assume a vote for a film like Vera Drake for a best picture nomination was a wasted vote, but a vote for a film like Lord of the Rings was not a wasted vote. Today, Vera Drake would be nominated for Best Picture and Lord of the Rings would be lucky to get more than two nominations, because the voters have been communicated to that it's not a viable contender in anything other than VFX and sound.

And you can't fix that unless the filmmakers of the big movies get contractual commitments to awards pushes before the movies are made, or if the academy makes eligibility for nomination of all films from big studios contingent on the big studios committing dollars to awards pushes for their biggest grossing films. If the studios aren't willing to support their big movies for awards, the little movies wouldn't be eligible. But that's probably a bridge too far. lol.

[felipe]

This seems like fairly extreme hyperbole - I see no reason or compelling evidence to think Don’t Look Up was more seen then, for example, King Richard.

https://deadline.com/2022/01/dont-look- ... 234908110/

There’s no reason to suggest any of these numbers possibly bear any resemblance to reality. Until there’s independent public interest research that one of the trades will inevitably publish, the best way to interpret general interest when titles are predominantly streaming is usually with something like Google activity, where Don’t Look Up while more popular then the other nominated films of this year has not approached the peaks of films like Star is Born, Joker, or even Parasite in the past few years. I just specifically find the statement comparing its performance to Black Panther completely unjustified.

Well, even if you doubt Netflix's figures, Don't Look Up has 441k ratings on IMDb which is a lot. It is much closer to Dune (494k) than to King Rihard (53k).

[Cremildo]

Not sure if this is of relevance to the discussion about DLU's alleged popularity, as I take it you mean in the USA specifically, but unlike any other Oscar contender (except maybe Dune) it became a major sensation and talking point in my country, thanks to the apt parallel between the fictional government's reluctance to act upon the asteroid problem and Bolsonaro's longstanding negationism in relation to the impact of COVID. And felipe has a point about online votes; on Letterboxd, it's been viewed by over 670k members, again second only to Dune. I see no reason to doubt reports about its success.

[knives]

In general I don’t think we really appreciate how much access streaming has given people with at least the numbers who would not otherwise know about a film stumbling accidentally on it increased many fold. For example I was watching Sorrentino’s latest (a truly great film by the way) and at letterboxd it’s his most popular film by some margin. Economically it’s hard to qualify, but in terms of people watching it’s unquestionably effective.

[Ribs]

There’s a few asterisks to that, namely that his only real breakthrough film in the US which previously won the Oscar came about in Letterboxd’s infancy when it was far smaller then it was now (and many users haven’t gone through and logged every movie they’ve ever seen but just things they’re now watching with diary entries, so it’s not quite a comprehensive portrait). For I think a good comparison look at how Hand of God has 70k views (less than Great Beauty’s 85k, fwiw), but Worst Person, fellow Oscar nominee, which is to this point exclusively theatrical in the US with very limited streaming access through Virtual Sundance and stuff like that, has 98k. This of course also ties to the fact that Sorrentino isn’t exactly online film circles cool at the moment and appeals much more to an older conventional art house audience that, while they may well watch the movie on Netflix, probably aren’t rating it on IMDb or Letterboxd. But I think in the metric of “the zeitgeist” many would say the film has been lacking in buzz even though its figures are ultimately not far off from Drive My Car or Worst Person in the World. It will be interesting how these figures change when Car comes available online in the US next week and I’m sure Worst Person will follow on Hulu not long after. But I do think this is also tied into an interesting question relatively unrelated to this subject matter about what Letterboxd has done to online film culture in that, like, many people including myself just cannot imagine watching movies without it after doing it for what is rapidly approaching a decade.

I’m sorry if my comment came across aggresively, I just specifically felt strong doubt at the comparison to Black Panther’s success and think most web metrics we can see from platforms like the above don’t put it on all that much higher a level then other hit films from recent years at the Oscars which also didn’t remotely approach Black Panther’s success.

[knives]

I’m not sure what you problem with the comparison is. If I say that Boccaccio is the oldest book I’ve read after Gilgamesh I’m not saying that it is on the same order of magnitude as Gilgamesh, just that it’s the closest.

[domino harvey]

With everything happening this week, the Oscars somehow delivered the most depressing blow of all. Everyone, here are the five nominees for the #OscarsCheerMoment Award, representing the five greatest audience pleasing scenes in film history. Do not click, you will regret reading the five nominees