Possible Return to Five Nominees

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Okri
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Re: Possible Return to Five Nominees

Post by Okri »

anonymous1980 wrote:
flipp525 wrote:Sasha is very manic and just way too - how do you say it? - invested in all this.
What's kind of ironic is that her site mantra is "the trick is not minding". Every year she always threatens to quit covering the Oscars.

And apparently Devin Faraci sent her a dick pic via Facebook.
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Re: Possible Return to Five Nominees

Post by anonymous1980 »

flipp525 wrote:Sasha is very manic and just way too - how do you say it? - invested in all this.
What's kind of ironic is that her site mantra is "the trick is not minding". Every year she always threatens to quit covering the Oscars.

And apparently Devin Faraci sent her a dick pic via Facebook.
Okri
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Re: Possible Return to Five Nominees

Post by Okri »

So I read Sasha's article. It was so bad I actually reread parts of it to make sure that I wasn't wrong. But it is just that bad.

I don't blame AMPAS, but I think they're fighting the wrong battle.
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Re: Possible Return to Five Nominees

Post by ITALIANO »

Sabin wrote:
Italiano wrote
The fact that her site is - as far as I know - so successful and so popular is a prove that stubborn mediocrity - intellectual and emotional - can have good results, especially when it comes to mass communication.
Yup. Especially if it's in list form.

This whole article is a series of mildly baseless musings strung together to resemble a point.
Yes, but also her mantra about the Academy being a "white boys club"... It's her personal obsession, and I know that it's probably a general American obsession, but I mean - racism and sexism ARE real problems, and frankly her childish "political correct" approach sounds so intellectually limited... It's like only considering the tip of the iceberg, and conveniently avoiding to effectively solve the issues. Plus, I don't see how going from 8 or 9 nominees to 10 can make such a big difference from this (or any other) point of view - but then I'm just too rational...
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Re: Possible Return to Five Nominees

Post by Sabin »

Italiano wrote
The fact that her site is - as far as I know - so successful and so popular is a prove that stubborn mediocrity - intellectual and emotional - can have good results, especially when it comes to mass communication.
Yup. Especially if it's in list form.

This whole article is a series of mildly baseless musings strung together to resemble a point. There are two interesting ideas in here. Well, interesting is a stretch actually, but there were two points that interested me. One of them is that the Awards Race doubly functions as a commentary on the industry and currently the Academy Awards functions less like a heralding of the greatest triumphs in cinema the year had to offer and more like, oh say, a Sasha Stone article on the state of the industry. Which is to say it feels less exclusive and more like a list, which she believes is more of the moment. But that doesn't change the fact that expanding the roster hasn't done anything that anybody wanted it to do, so it's baseless especially considering that the ratings don't point to the public watching the dramatic finish.

The other thing she posits is that the expansion of the list in some ways incentivizes the film industry by opening up more options for the Academy, and there's some truth to that point. If a movie like Winter's Bone can be nominated, that incentivizes the production of movies on that scale. The only thing that I like about both the expansion of the roster to ten is that it serves as an additional carrot for film investors on a low budget scale and production companies on a mid-budget scale. The main reason why people aren't watching is because they don't care enough about the movies nominated, and the ones they do care about aren't going to win. If people thought American Sniper was going to win, viewership would have been pretty damn good.
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Re: Possible Return to Five Nominees

Post by ITALIANO »

The fact that her site is - as far as I know - so successful and so popular is a prove that stubborn mediocrity - intellectual and emotional - can have good results, especially when it comes to mass communication.
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Re: Possible Return to Five Nominees

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That's because it's what makes her readers like her. It's part of the dog-and-pony show that once made Tom O'Neil the go-to "expert" for all things Oscar.
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Re: Possible Return to Five Nominees

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Sasha is very manic and just way too - how do you say it? - invested in all this.
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Re: Possible Return to Five Nominees

Post by Bog »

Oy vey...dearest Sasha is at it again...I also never noticed her very brief "bio" reading she's been around the Oscar scene since 1999...almost everything on this website is her fault. We're aware, though it doesn't stop at the website.

http://www.awardsdaily.com/blog/2015/03 ... -nominees/

Naturally she looks most longingly back on the year that brought us Best Picture nominees (not simply Oscar nominees) Avatar, District 9, Up, and THE BLIND SIDE
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Re: Possible Return to Five Nominees

Post by anonymous1980 »

I actually kind of like the idea put forth by Nathaniel Rogers of The Film Experience: Why not have an executive committee of Academy members add contenders that slipped through the cracks into the Best Picture category like they do in Best Foreign Language Film?
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Re: Possible Return to Five Nominees

Post by Heksagon »

I wish they would cut the unfunny skits and fillers and focus more on the films and the filmmakers being honored. Incidentally, I feel that this is what they have been doing during the last ten years, to some extent.

I'm all for musical numbers, but attaching a song to the In Memoriam segment is kind of pointless. The songs should be more closely linked to films.

On the other hand, I hate the idea of showing trailers. I hate trailers.
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Re: Possible Return to Five Nominees

Post by Big Magilla »

The way they determine the nominees and winner with tossing out ballots and counting down until they get a re-determined percentage of total votes to determine the number of nominees is asinine. The whole thing needs to be overhauled with a fixed number of nominees be it five, six, seven or ten.

That said, the number of nominees is not what's driving disinterest in the show. The Hollywood Reporter actually had a list of recommended fixes they published last week, a couple of which were good ideas. One was to de-emphasize the host. The other was to premiere trailers of upcoming films that the great unwashed actually want to see.

I would also add cut down on the pre-show and end it at 8:00 EST so the actual awards can start then. Have the host come on, welcome the guests and introduce the first presenter within five or ten minutes of the start of the show. Eliminate fillers like three minutes of song after the In Memoriam segment. Find away to bring on more veteran stars. We don't need to see the same people we see on every awards show over and over.
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Re: Possible Return to Five Nominees

Post by The Original BJ »

At this point, yes, it's just a discussion, but how many times are these people going to change their rules in recent years depending on how the wind blows? Or, more to the point, how high the ratings for the telecast are? At some point, doesn't the Academy just have to accept that the Oscar ratings are the Oscar ratings -- and they're pretty darn good for what amounts to high network television ratings in today's era -- and realize the tail can't be wagging the dog?

Maybe even more to the point, how come the nominated movies always take the blame for low ratings for the telecast? Can't we just admit that Zadan and Meron didn't do a very good job of putting this show together this year, and it was BORING? No wonder people tuned out.

I think everyone here pretty much knew as soon as the ten-wide change was announced that, yes, something like The Dark Knight would have made it in under those rules, but there wouldn't be THAT many movies like that that the Academy voters would suddenly warm to. In fact, those first two years brought the most blockbusters into the fold in those "extra" spots -- District 9, Up, and The Blind Side in '09, Toy Story 3 and maybe Inception in '10. But since then, many of the movies that benefited were pretty tiny -- Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Amour, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Her, Philomena, The Theory of Everything, Whiplash. (The article posits that American Sniper wouldn't have made it in a field of five, but I think it's pretty probable it would have, especially given the surprise Actor nod and the DGA mention.)

I'd be happy with a return to five, but I agree that these anything-goes rule changes suggest an organization floundering in an era when the gap between box office success and aspirations to art seem to be drifting further and further apart.
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Re: Possible Return to Five Nominees

Post by Heksagon »

I'd like to see it happen, but I doubt it will happen soon.
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Re: Possible Return to Five Nominees

Post by OscarGuy »

It's a knee jerk reaction. The problem is that they reduced from 10 guaranteed to less than 10. Their voting method, more so than number of nominees, is more responsible for a lack of inclusion. This year, what else could they have conceivable nominated? Guardians of the Galaxy? Interstellar? Gone Girl? There weren't a lot of big blockbuster items.

The article's argument about box office is specious as well. 2009 was $1.7 billion total, average across ten films $170 million. It's a little unfair to include this since Avatar hasn't had anything even close to comparable since then and it heavily skews the numbers. 2010 was $1.3 billion (not bad considering there was no Avatar). Average was $135 million. 2011 was much lower at $628 million, $69 million average. 2012 was a bounce up with $1.0 billion, $111 million average. 2013 was $813 million, $90 million average. 2014 so far is $640 million, $80 million average.

Again, it all comes down to perception. 2008's box office average with five nominees was $70 million, 2007 was $71 million, 2006 was $59 million, 2005 was $49 million, 2004 was $80 million, 2003 was $145 million, 2002 was $132 million and 2001 was $123 million. The only reason those first three years were above $100 million is that the Lord of the Rings trilogy was nominated. Note that all of the other years average at or less than 2014's average. That's hardly an argument for returning to 5. Maybe if the show wasn't as lame as it has been, they might be able to draw viewers. Get someone truly exciting to host, but is there really anyone that exciting to host?
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