New Voting Procedures

Okri
Tenured
Posts: 3345
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 3:28 pm
Location: Edmonton, AB

Post by Okri »

I guess since I asked the question, I should be willing to answer it. Unfortunately, my answer is going to be mealy-mouthed and unclear.

Using the Crash vs Brokeback example, the reason I'm inclined to side against Crash (and in the A Beautiful Mind vs the rest against the Howard film) is because of the majority required. I'm not saying that the main opposing contender would've won, but hell, using this board as an example, each film seemed to have an ardent defender (Brokeback Mountain had Penelope, Good Night and Good Luck had Damien and I believe you, Mister Tee; Munich had myself, Eric and dws) and I'm pretty sure a majority of those films individual admirers would support the other two first (not always, of course. If I recall, Damien had Crash third of the best picture nominees, and dws ranked Brokeback Mountain and Crash about the same, with Capote at the rear). I don't know what would've won, but I doubt it would be Crash, and that is a good thing. On the other hand, I doubt Annie Hall would've won, and I can see you cringing at that thought.

Anyway, to answer the actual question....

Firstly, I should state that I am in no way endorsing Kris Tapley's Survivor/American Idol suggestion, for both practical (really, how long would it be between nominations and the actual awards) and ideological (it's stupid). Secondly, my history with the oscars is obviously shorter than yours. In fact, I'm entirely confident that my history with the internet is longer (first email account? Summer of 1996. First Oscar show? The Titanic year, though I did watch part of The English Patient oscars). So obviously, I don't hold the oscars as sacred to the extent that you do. Additionally, the “demystification” of the oscars, as has happened with the popularity of year round oscar predictions, the internet making buzz for films accumulate much more rapidly then ever before (and dissipate as the next big thing becomes more important), happened concurrently with my engagement with the oscars.

The Dark Knight had interesting elements, was near the top end of its genre, but at heart it was a dressed-up comic book movie – and, please let’s not forget, the (at least) fifth film in a series. I don’t want voters to abandon their long-time preference for grown-up films – and original work -- just because studios make all their money on endlessly recycling the comic book genre (or because journalists goad Academy folk to vote for them to prove their hipsterism).


I guess the big thing here is I'm not sure why The Dark Knight, for it's shortcomings, can't be considered a grown-up film. Or more specifically, why The Reader or Finding Neverland or Crash or Babel or The Departed or Michael Clayton are. I don't know why being the sixth Batman film matters (which leads me to believe I might be part of the group you feel against). I'm not sure why 'comic book' is perjorative to you the same way 'holocaust' is perjorative for oscar cynics. Or I guess I do understand, but don't think it's fair (but simulatenously don't want to be lumped in with those people who emailed critics who didn't like The Dark Knight). I don't see why I should feel childish for having my comic books on the same shelf as my Alice Munro or Tom Stoppard. And it's worth mentioning that those same journalists were goading the Academy folk to nominate WALL.E, and it didn't get nominated because of similar dismissals (animation is just for kids, etc)

That said, to me, the most noteworthy snub this decade won't be the The Dark Knight debacle (a film I really enjoyed and would've liked to see nominated above four of the eventual nominees, but not one that made my own top five/ten). It'll be the foreign film line-up of 2007/08. Remember? When they ignored virtually every film that got raves/awards at Cannes? Nothing for Persepolis, 4 months.., The Edge of Heaven, Silent Light AND Secret Sunshine? None of these even made the semfinal round. To me, the academy's response was startlingly swift – it's not like they hadn't made blunders before – City of God was snubbed way back in 2002 (though of course that proved to be a boon more than a blunder for the film). They were gonna set up a “blue ribbon panel” of sorts that would add three films to the top six vote getters, and the three films were gonna be from the festival circuit that achieved a degree of acclaim. I'm willing to wager that that helped Waltz With Bashir and Revanche get into the semi-final nine last year. To me, this is more than just the general monkeying around the foreign film category has undergone (removing the “official language” requirement as a result of Cache, setting up the “semi-final” panel) but almost an admission of wrong-doing. They knew they screwed up and had done so somewhat deeply. Indeed, while the maneuver basically took some power away from the voters, it didn't do so entirely.

The films AMPAS want to nominate are deemed unpopular by a disinterested public and the complicit media. They haven't yet figured out how to handle the shift to DVD as a primary source of a film's viewing, which I think is important (we're seeing more films appear on IFC on Demand concurrent with their theatrical runs, which means no oscar nominations for films that previously would've been writing/acting candidates – In the Loop, Summer Hours, Still Walking – and IFC has emerged as the distributor that's quite attractive to independent producers; along with Sony Pictures Classics). Additionally, with more and more adults electing to bypass opening weekends in favour of watching it on the big screen television without the annoying kids, these films struggle even further to find an audience. The internet of course allows people to find and view films at their own pace (I won't say which ones).

And I can't help but think that the perception of stodgy cronyism hurts them just as much. Why do you (does one) watch the oscars. For me, I watch because I like the idea of celebrating the best in film – and it's the celebratory aspect I enjoy. That's why I enjoyed the 08/Slumdog oscars so much – the fact that it felt like a genuine celebration of films (the process, the history, the nominees). I actually skipped watching the 2006/2007 oscars because Crash won the previous year. I don't watch the Grammys simply because the music I listen to isn't what they honor. And it's becoming the same way with the oscars, and I don't consider myself in Eric-land yet, where my films are never gonna become oscar favourites (I'm trying, though). But not only are they starting to ignore my favourite mainstream entries (A History of Violence, Children of Men, WALL.E), they honor films I out-and-out loathe (The Reader, Crash).

But AMPAS has acknowledged (twice) that they can't really trust their voters to select the right films, even when the choices are obvious (and yes, I think The Dark Knight was an obvious choice). But if they can't appeal to the masses, because the masses are idiots, and the intelligensia views them with disdain, and the intelligent mainstream (which you've cast yourself as in the past) don't generally find the films they love nominated in the big categories (I remember you saying that you've had bad luck with your favourite film somehow tripping out by oscars: About Schmidt, The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Ice Storm, and more but my memory is hazy), what's left besides nostalgia? And for those of us without nostalgia, all we can hope for is a good show.




Edited By Okri on 1252202824
Okri
Tenured
Posts: 3345
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 3:28 pm
Location: Edmonton, AB

Post by Okri »

Thanks for your response. I'll let it settle a bit before I figure out mine.
Mister Tee
Tenured Laureate
Posts: 8637
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 2:57 pm
Location: NYC
Contact:

Post by Mister Tee »

Okri: As promised, my response. Pardon me if it rambles; I’m finding it difficult to focus these days. I think I got most of my points in somewhere.

Clearly there’s a strain of “tradition” that’s simply resistance to change of any kind – the old timers who can’t accept working with women, who bitch about people not wearing white shirt and tie at the office anymore; the Catholic who wishes Masses were still in Latin, and Fridays still meat-less. I offer no support for traditionalists of that stripe.

But there are also those who argue against a coming change (and get similarly dismissed as old fogies) but take their position because they perceive a threat to something essential in an institution. In American baseball, for instance, the playoff system was expanded about 15 years ago to include the wild card – a second place team that in an earlier time would have gone home but now played on. A lot of us think this cost the game a great tradition: the do-or-die pennant race, where you either finished first or got nothing…as in, famously, 1951 or 1978. Now, the second place team is in, too (changing, as someone memorably put it, the most famous radio call in history – “The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!” -- into “The Giants win the pennant! The Dodgers win the Wild Card!”) But, however grumpy some of us may have been about it, it didn’t represent a sea-change: playoff spots were still at a premium, and post-season proceeded more or less as it had. Now, however, there are some arguing that, since the expanded playoffs have gone so well, it’s time to expand them further – to let 8 or more teams play for the championship, like in hockey or basketball. (The rationale: It’s how the young folks love to see sports played!) That, to me, would cheapen the long regular season beyond recognition, and I for one would find it very hard to continue to be a fan in that circumstance. Fighting that, I think, is an example of holding on to tradition for worthy reasons.

What the Oscars have always had that is, in my mind, essential, is a certain mystique. It’s partly based in institutional longevity, of course. But I think it also derives from structural elements, and our familiarity with them. For my entire life, Oscar season has gone essentially exactly the same: nominees chosen and announced, a waiting period between nomination and voting, and, at last, the rituals of Oscar night: the careful, ascending arrangement of categories, the lame but soothing jokes and musical interludes, and, beyond all, that brief chunk of time when the intoning of nominees’ names leads to the ripped-open envelope and the announcement of the winner. Can anyone deny that’s a moment that has a crazy power about it? That every other awards show has tried to imitate but has never fully matched? Why would anyone want to take that away in favor of some Survivor-like eliminate-‘em-one-at-a-time format, just because that’s what’s worked elsewhere the past couple of years? Especially since you know, one day, that method will be out of style, too…how do you then go back to what you abandoned? How do you recover mystique after tossing it overboard?

Obviously, no one in Academy upper echelons has seriously suggested the revamp I’ve just mentioned. But the enthusiastic reaction of Tapley’s and Wells’ readers to the idea, and the seeming eagerness of this current AMPAS board to appeal to “youth”, makes me fear it’s the equivalent of “now let’s make it 8 teams” – it’s what can happen if those looking for big change keep getting their way, and the rest of us don’t make a stand right now.

Now, you ask, am I perfectly happy with the Academy as is, and the answer is, of course, no: I have the same problems with it so many here do – its resistance to anything cutting edge (even mainstream-flirting instances), its preference for the bland epic or the drearily middle-brow, its laughable susceptibility to Holocaust movies. I’d like to see some sort of purge of inactive older voters (like the one Gregory Peck initiated in the late 60s), that might at least keep movies like The Reader out of the mix.

But let me narrow this to a question that looms large in the whole rule-change brouhaha: do I think the Academy’s biggest failing is not nominating movies like The Dark Knight for best picture? In my mind, that’s pretty much the entire motivation behind these recent rule changes, to make sure the next Dark Knight makes the cut. And my answer would be a flat no. The Dark Knight had interesting elements, was near the top end of its genre, but at heart it was a dressed-up comic book movie – and, please let’s not forget, the (at least) fifth film in a series. I don’t want voters to abandon their long-time preference for grown-up films – and original work -- just because studios make all their money on endlessly recycling the comic book genre (or because journalists goad Academy folk to vote for them to prove their hipsterism).

Now, I’m not blind to reality. I understand ratings have been down substantially in recent years, and the Academy, like any entity with a commercial component, has to deal with the marketplace. But, as I see it, there are three reasons for this decline, reasons that these rule changes, as I see it, do nothing to address:

First, the TV audience is far more fragmented these days. Ratings for everything (except, somehow, the Super Bowl) aren’t what they used to be. The ratings American Idol crows about would barely have kept them on the air 30 years ago. So the market is diminished no matter what.

Second, the Oscar mystique has been dimmed by all the competing/lead-in awards. I don’t blame the Golden Globes; they’ve been around since before I was born and never had any negative impact. But the SAG Awards, the rescheduled BAFTAS, and especially those whore-y Broadcast Critics’ soirees (with their “watch us predict the Oscars” vibe) have substantially upstaged the Oscars, often featuring the same winners and even acceptance speeches. The Academy solution – to move up their ceremony date – was self-evidently ineffective: all it did was make all the other awards move up as well, creating a window so short that we’re seeing Oscar winners give not just the same speech, but one we heard only ten days earlier. To do anything about this problem, you’d essentially have to beg these organizations to quite giving out their awards, at least on air. And again, no rule change being contemplated is going to do anything to fix that.

But finally, the most significant problem is the bald fact that American movie-going culture has come to center on adolescent crud to a degree no one could have imagined even in the worst earlier fallow periods. Not only are the most popular movies trivial, they’re breathtakingly unoriginal – sequels and remakes and take-offs of old TV shows. And the system has been designed – and, sadly, seemingly accepted by movie-goers -- so that this domination continues and even grows. It used to matter whether a movie was at least entertaining on some basic level. Now you have one pre-sold package after another making more and more money even while substantial numbers in the audience proclaim the films uninspiring if not dreadful. (And if something reasonably enjoyable emerges from this system, like the recent Star Trek, or The Dark Knight, it’s touted as a relative masterpiece) Meantime, studio interest in adult fare has dwindled dramatically: they’ve farmed out crowd-pleasers like Sideways or down-the-middle-dramas like Traffic to their indie arms – and now they’re shutting many of those divisions down. And they don’t give off-beat titles time to find an audience. Damien and I were recently recalling how Carnal Knowledge played at one theatre in NY from June to Christmas, to be replaced by A Clockwork Orange which ran till the following summer. By the time these films got out to what we used to call “the neighborhoods”, they were widely known and there was significant want-to-see buzz around them. Today, they’d be expanded to 1500 theaters within 2-3 weeks, and likely wither. I know communications in this modern world are supposed to have sped up the process, and I can accept a certain amount of truncation. But the fact is, films without pre-sell – even excellent films – seem to die once they get out of the largest cities, and the fact that people haven’t had the time to learn about them doesn’t seem to be considered as a factor in their comparative failures.

In any case, the situation is this in a nutshell: the best films frequently aren’t so widely known, and the films that great numbers of people have seen are 90% of the time beneath consideration for awards. I doubt Academy members like this situation; they’re a group of populists, by and large, and, given the opportunity to nominate widely-seen decent films, they’ll grab it – as they did with The Sixth Sense, the Rings movies, Chicago, The Departed. The problem is, there just aren’t enough such films in the current environment.

I don’t, frankly, have the slightest idea how to deal with this conundrum. I often despair of it ever improving, and I empathize with the Academy’s plight. All I’m saying is, I don’t see any possibility the rule changes will provide any answers.
Zahveed
Associate
Posts: 1838
Joined: Wed Nov 07, 2007 1:47 pm
Location: In Your Head
Contact:

Post by Zahveed »

ITALIANO wrote:
Zahveed wrote:Italiano, knowing what is behind the choices doesn't change the fact that it's already made and we can't do a damn thing about it. I can understand arguing these facts in a political discussion because the general public has a say in the matter, but this is a membership that make decisions internally.
Nice way of thinking. So why should we talk about Hitler or Nixon? It all happened already and we can't change it.
But we have the power to prevent such events from happening again.
"It's the least most of us can do, but less of us will do more."
ITALIANO
Emeritus
Posts: 4076
Joined: Mon Jan 06, 2003 1:58 pm
Location: MILAN

Post by ITALIANO »

Zahveed wrote:Italiano, knowing what is behind the choices doesn't change the fact that it's already made and we can't do a damn thing about it. I can understand arguing these facts in a political discussion because the general public has a say in the matter, but this is a membership that make decisions internally.
Nice way of thinking. So why should we talk about Hitler or Nixon? It all happened already and we can't change it.
Zahveed
Associate
Posts: 1838
Joined: Wed Nov 07, 2007 1:47 pm
Location: In Your Head
Contact:

Post by Zahveed »

I'm not arguing the discussion, and I wasn't before. I'm just surprised at how pissy some people are getting over it. Forgive me. I'll leave you to your vices.
"It's the least most of us can do, but less of us will do more."
User avatar
Sonic Youth
Tenured Laureate
Posts: 8003
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 8:35 pm
Location: USA

Post by Sonic Youth »

Zahveed wrote:Italiano, knowing what is behind the choices doesn't change the fact that it's already made and we can't do a damn thing about it. I can understand arguing these facts in a political discussion because the general public has a say in the matter, but this is a membership that make decisions internally.
That I don't get. Why talk about the Oscars at all?
"What the hell?"
Win Butler
Zahveed
Associate
Posts: 1838
Joined: Wed Nov 07, 2007 1:47 pm
Location: In Your Head
Contact:

Post by Zahveed »

Italiano, knowing what is behind the choices doesn't change the fact that it's already made and we can't do a damn thing about it. I can understand arguing these facts in a political discussion because the general public has a say in the matter, but this is a membership that make decisions internally.



Edited By Zahveed on 1252105328
"It's the least most of us can do, but less of us will do more."
FilmFan720
Emeritus
Posts: 3650
Joined: Thu Jan 02, 2003 3:57 pm
Location: Illinois

Post by FilmFan720 »

Mister Tee wrote:My biggest problem with this system is, I think it may ultimately move power over to those with the lamest taste. Think about it: those whose first place choices got the least support get to try over and over again (your second choice isn't popular either? On to the third), possibly boosting mid-level films no one particularly hates over the most widely admired. Whereas if discerning opinion is split between (again the hypothetical case) No Country and There Will Be Blood, their second place votes (possibly for one another) can be of no extra help. We can get to a point where the lamest voters, by refusing to ratify a near 50% choice, can, by their fifth or sixth place votes, elevate Juno or Atonement to winner-by-default. (The infamous Crash/Brokeback upset would, it seems to me, be even more likely under this scenario, as all those who simply didn't want Brokeback to win would be allowed to successively vote for every alternative until some other film got to majority) I don't see why 50% should suddenly become a sine qua non, when it has never been in the past.
Tee, that is assuming that those choosing the lamest choices are the minority. I think that the Academy has proven itself that lame is not the exception to many of their rules.

For every year that there is a Choclat or Seabiscuit to be the fifth place film in the Best Picture race, there are years with Munichs and Letters from Iwo Jimas and In the Bedrooms that could syphon votes to slightly edgier choices.

Let's take 2001 as an example. Under the 10 film rule, I think we can assume that Mulholland Dr. and The Royal Tenenbaums could have snuck into the Best Picture race. If the other added nominees were Shrek, Harry Potter and Ali (just throwing these out). In that 10 film race, Mulholland and Royal Tenenbaums (with strong yet small voting blocs) may have been the 10 and 9 films on the first place voting. Those would then be syphoned up to, lets say, Traffic or Crouching Tiger, and that could have pushed one of them up fairly quickly. This isn't going to get In the Bedroom a Best Picture award, but it is going to move into the more acceptable "edgier" films.
"Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good."
- Minor Myers, Jr.
ITALIANO
Emeritus
Posts: 4076
Joined: Mon Jan 06, 2003 1:58 pm
Location: MILAN

Post by ITALIANO »

It's not about results, Zahveed. For once, it's about methods, or even ethics, and what's behind choices.
Zahveed
Associate
Posts: 1838
Joined: Wed Nov 07, 2007 1:47 pm
Location: In Your Head
Contact:

Post by Zahveed »

Whether we agree with the choices or not, let's not get our panties in a bunch. The decision is made - let's see how it turns out.
"It's the least most of us can do, but less of us will do more."
Uri
Adjunct
Posts: 1230
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 11:37 pm
Location: Israel

Post by Uri »

Okri wrote:I still don't understand how you feel that the oscar show was indicative of these changes.
Those with a functioning nose could smell that subtle yet very distinctive smell of hysteria. The lets-do-SOMETHING-and-please-PLEASE-watch-our-show aroma which has lingered at everything the Academy is doing ever since.
ITALIANO
Emeritus
Posts: 4076
Joined: Mon Jan 06, 2003 1:58 pm
Location: MILAN

Post by ITALIANO »

Well, it wasnt probably indicative of THESE changes, but definitely of changes, and of a general direction which was worrying. But of course most here were too busy in the by now typical race of "let's see who applauds louder" to realize that.
Okri
Tenured
Posts: 3345
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 3:28 pm
Location: Edmonton, AB

Post by Okri »

I still don't understand how you feel that the oscar show was indicative of these changes. Could you please explain that, Italiano?

Eric, you're probably right. But I like awards shows too much to want that to happen.
ITALIANO
Emeritus
Posts: 4076
Joined: Mon Jan 06, 2003 1:58 pm
Location: MILAN

Post by ITALIANO »

OscarGuy wrote:Then of course, we could all celebrate at Italiano's misery and congratulate Oscar winning producers Laurence Mark and Bill Condon. :)

You are closer to the truth than you probably think.

As everyone said on this thread better than I could (and honestly, I'm pleased to see that, Bill Condon or not Bill Condon, this is really too much even for the most enthusiastic fans of the man) this other new rule is a further step towards mediocrity. It's something that will probably (though I am not sure) slightly increase the audience for the tv show, but certainly further damage the reputation of the Oscars as film awards, and they certainly didn't need that.

But I'm sorry to insist. I don't understand all this surprise. The plan is clear now, and it was clear even a few months ago when we saw that same Oscar show that everyone here "had" to like. The thread is still there, please go and read it again. You will see who was right (very few) and who was wrong (most of those who are now so shocked).

Open your eyes, my friends.




Edited By ITALIANO on 1252050598
Post Reply

Return to “Other Oscar Discussions”