The 12th Annual Who'll Be Back?

[Hustler]

Williams and Adams will be back very soon. As for Bridges and Firth I think their time is over (a la Hurt in 1985/87)
Benning is warmly expected to be nominated again and this time finally awarded.
In the meantime, Close will be next year in the lineup with Albert Nobbs.

[Mister Tee]

It occurred to me to go leafing through the nominations lists and see which year would have been most fruitful for this game -- i.e., which featured the most "came out of the night a loser but took the trophy home eventually" candidates.

The answer is one I'd never have guessed: the class of 1958, which had six actors and one director who failed that night but were eventually Oscar-ed. It's a rather odd bunch. I have no sense from history that any of them was viewed as seriously in the '58 race -- though Elizabeth Taylor was halfway through her climb to the sympathy Oscar of 1960. Taylor was also one of only three of them -- the others Sidney Poitier and Gig Young (plus director Robert Wise) -- to secure the win in decent range of this loss. The remaining three, amazingly, all waited till the 80s for their wins: Maureen Stapleton, Shirley MacLaine and Paul Newman.

There are five other classes that produced five future acting winners -- 1941, '51, '53, '69 and '74. '51 and '74 also harbored later directing champs, Minnelli and Polanski, respectively. And '69 had two such directors: George Roy Hill and Sydney Pollack.

1969 is my favorite of the group...partly because of the two directors bringing the total to 7 (tying '58)...but mostly because the five actors in question were the widely-talked-about runners-up in that year's race (Hoffman, Voight, Fonda, Minnelli, and Nicholson), and all of them had their prizes before a decade had passed. And given that Hackman, Burstyn, DeNiro, Dunaway and Keaton also won over that period, you really had a sense of something new struggling to be born and ultimately managing it successfully.

[Okri]

Are you wanting people who were on their fourth or who only ever had four nominations?

The latter. Of those with four nods, what percentage of them are winners? That kinda number.

[Mister Tee]

It's hard to answer whether there will continue to be substantial serious successes because I can't quite figure why so many of them came about to begin with.

I said, prior to its release, that I thought Social Network was really taking a chance, opting for the wide release rather than the traditional week one NY/LA, week two 30 theaters etc. But it was by any recent standard a huge success. (David Poland -- off-base as usual -- keeps trying to label it significant that the film ended up grossing marginally less than other seasonal films, Black Swan and The Fighter. He ignores the fact that Social Network attained its just-short-of-100-million with no help from star names, and was mostly played out by Christmas, depriving it of both the steroidal Christmas week gross -- every film in wide release that week got $5-10 million in free money -- and any Oscar bump)

The film's atypical success seemed to set the tone for the season, as every contending year-end film way surpassed expectation -- Black Swan could easily have ended up at the $30-40 million done by most recent off-beat indies. King's Speech could have stayed in Queen territory (c. $60 mil). And The Fighter could as easily have finished up at the $50-60 million level, rather than crossing 90 the way it did. As for True Grit -- I'd imagine Joel and Ethan must look at one another and laugh with incredulity that they somehow lucked into a true smash hit.

It'd be lovely to think this is the future...because it would so resemble a past (the 70s) where so many good things were allowed to happen. But we can't block out recent years as if they never happened. I understand why Academy folk panicked in '08, when the miniscule-grossing Frost/Nixon and The Reader ended up on the list (The Reader I believe ended up in the 30s off its Oscar push, but at nominations time it looked fated to end in the teens), and even Benjamin Button, given how front-loaded its gross had been, didn't register as a movie people actually liked much. Add to that the many films in preceding years that had seemed to hit that $30-40 million wall (Capote, Good Night and Good Luck, Babel, The Pianist, Lost in Translation, Michael Clayton), and it began to seem as if the Oscar movie was pure niche -- even if voters were happy to vote for the one big hit (The Departed or Slumdog) when given the chance. Meantime, any old piece of crap with a Roman numeral after it had at least a 60-70% shot at making a profit, which gave the studio folk little motivation for changing the composition of their release slates.

But maybe this clumping together of serious hits will get someone's attention. And maybe it's taken this long to clear away the confusion caused by the collapse of all the specialty units, so a few strong projects can make it through each year --enough to keep us going and the Academy in business. It is something to watch.

[Big Magilla]

I don't think box office has ever been a significant factor, but awareness is. Whether that awareness comes from promotion, word-of-mouth or some other source, it's what's going to count going forward as well as in the past.

The more interesting question to me is whether year-end awards, including the Oscars, are once again having an impact on box office. Would the general public have been as interested in the year-end films you cite if they had been critical bombs?

[The Original BJ]

I agree with most of what has been said already...so can I pose a follow-up question?

Will the big hits be back?

For a number of years running now, we've been treated to press articles about how the Best Picture field has been dominated by low grossers. '07, people claimed, didn't have a BIG hit (though Juno and No Country hardly underperformed b.o.-wise.) And the '08 lineup, of course, contained infamous low-grossers (though plenty ignored the fact that the winner and another nominee were sizable hits.) Even last year, with the highest grossing movie ever nominated, the film that dominated the ceremony was a complete financial bomb, and several other nominees (Education & Serious Man) were box-office disappointments.

This year? Our ten nominees gave us TWO blockbusters and FIVE serious dramas that caught on with audiences in a big way. Two additional nominees were solid indie hits, leaving only one film (127 Hours) that you could really argue performed unsuccessfully. And yet...where were the news articles about how the Academy had embraced its populist strain? Or, perhaps more appropriately, where was the press that the public was suddenly attending award-bait movies again? For all the squawking in recent years about how "the Academy is out of touch," the year offered surprisingly little celebration of the fact that, this year, you couldn't even remotely begin to try to make that argument.

It will be interesting to see what the nomination fields are like in years to come. On one hand, I've never taken the view that the Academy doesn't like popular movies...and yet, the number of serious movies made by the studios in recent years had indeed dropped to such significant lows that you had to wonder if the public's and Oscar's taste would ever realign. And yet, here with are, commencing a season in which Black Swan, The Social Network, The King's Speech, True Grit, and The Fighter were among the most talked-about films of year's end by the general public.

It will also be interesting to see how this summer's blockbuster overload -- is this the most tentpole-heavy summer we've ever had? -- fares. If too much competition causes some of these to crash and burn...might we see more studios realizing that maybe mid-level dramas (which are far cheaper, and which this year audiences proved they WILL go see) aren't as big a financial risk as they once thought?

[Greg]

In regards to directors, I think it is mostly futile looking at their track records so far to try to determine their Oscar future. I think the trend that the film winning Best Picture has its director win, regardless of any personal feeling within the Academy for the director, is still the rule. The few splits in the last decade are aberrations and this year is more in line with the trend.

Also, I do not think Leo's acceptance speech will have any impact on her Oscar future. If a lot of members of the Academy cared about this, she would not have won after her campaign pictures. I think Monique and Leo winning back to back is an indication that, for the acting categories, the performances alone are becoming the more predominant factor; and, the actors' personal lives and campaigning or lack thereof just do not matter so much any more.

[OscarGuy]

Are you wanting people who were on their fourth or who only ever had four nominations?

[Okri]

Yeah, that's what I was wondering.

At five nods: 24 actors, 20 winners (Close, Dunne, Finney, and Kennedy were the odd ones out). I can't find a list of all the four-time oscar nominees (looks at Oscarguy balefully....)

---

I can imagine Fincher, Russell, the Coens, Nolan and Aronofsky having gotten together for a drink to commemorate the lunacy of haivng lost to Tom Hooper (or in Nolan's case, not having even gotten the chance). Leigh wasn't present, unfortunately.

Gotcha re: Garfield. I've always interpreted the rules more liberally (someone who brokethrough that year and could see a nod in the future).

Given that we spoke of Manville as a possible nominee since Cannes, what do we think of her future chances? Was this her best shot? I assume category confusion AND SPC's crappy handling of the release (why, why, why was this a December movie. It's not a December movie.) hurt her a great deal, but her character's abrasive nature isn't for everyone (similar to how Poppy from Happy-Go-Lucky's wasn't, though in a different way). Of course, people talked a bit about Hawkins in Made in Dagenham (and I remain a little surprised that that movie didn't go further. It's just so easy) but that went nowhere.

Emma Stone wasn't anywhere near the oscars, but I can definitely see her gracing the stage in the future, a la Reese Witherspoon.

I always confuse Olivia Williams with Gina McKee.

How about directors? Anyone breakthrough you think might clinch an oscar nomination? I think Michod and Granick come to mind first. And of course Ben Affleck.

[anonymous1980]

4. Both the Coens and Mike Leigh received their first writing nod in 1996. They celebrated their fifth side-by-side as well. Thought that was a fun little note of trivia.

ANd I'm sure that at the Governors Ball they all sat together and made disparaging, condescending remarks about everyone else in the room.

I don't think Mike Leigh attended this year though.

[Uri]

4. Both the Coens and Mike Leigh received their first writing nod in 1996. They celebrated their fifth side-by-side as well. Thought that was a fun little note of trivia.

ANd I'm sure that at the Governors Ball they all sat together and made disparaging, condescending remarks about everyone else in the room.

You really don't get Jews, do you?

But seriously, I think that the Coens, whose approach I can relate to a very certain Jewish school of humor, and Leigh, whose sensibilities are coming from a totally different humanistic (ok, just for you – self righteous) leftist agenda (which also happens to be very popular among Jews) are really that close thematically or esthetically.

[Damien]

4. Both the Coens and Mike Leigh received their first writing nod in 1996. They celebrated their fifth side-by-side as well. Thought that was a fun little note of trivia.

ANd I'm sure that at the Governors Ball they all sat together and made disparaging, condescending remarks about everyone else in the room.

[Uri]

The really high numbers (Streep's 16, 12, 10, 9) are, unless I'm forgetting someone (don't have a list in front of me), 100% winners: Hepburn, Nicholson, Olivier, Tracy, Newman.

Beware, you're entering Joan Crawford territory here – how dare you forget Bette?

[Mister Tee]

At which point (in terms of nod numbers) do winners outnumber non-winners?

.......

I'm a little startled you're so dismissive of Garfield's chances. Like dws, I was blown away by Garfield in Boy A and figured he would cross over sooner rather than later (The Social Network and Spider-man simply confirm that theory).

To the first question (assuming I know what you're asking):

The really high numbers (Streep's 16, 12, 10, 9) are, unless I'm forgetting someone (don't have a list in front of me), 100% winners: Hepburn, Nicholson, Olivier, Tracy, Newman.

O'Toole as far as I know is the only 8-timer without a win, and there are several others (Lemmon, Pacino, Page off the top of my head) who outnumber him.

Burton got 7 without a win, and it's possible he's the only one at that number. But I don't think that's the intent behind your question.

I've always thought of 6 as the unlucky spot, because of Thelma Ritter and Deborah Kerr (Burton was there for most of the 70s, as well). But recently Winslet and Bridges have provide some winner balance.

5 I think is where you start getting significant numbers of losers, but I don't have an as-of-today exact count. And it seems like 4 might be where the balance really starts to tilt against.

....

The other question: I certainly wasn't meaning to dismiss Andrew Garfield, whose omission this year was my primary nominations morning disappointment. I was simply referring to the fact that, when you guys first raised him a year or two back, he didn't fit even the most liberal interpretation of the bonus round rules -- however strong his Boy A work was, he didn't figure in any Oscar discussion I heard -- so that now, when he did fall under the round's tradition, he seemed like old news because people had jumped the gun on him.

[Okri]

1. At which point (in terms of nod numbers) do winners outnumber non-winners?

2. I'm less sanguine in general about this group coming back, which is wierd because it's a year in which we have over half the slate as repeaters (Nathaniel over at the film experience did the math and apparently, something like 36% of nominees come back; this year 60% of the nominees had prior citations). I'd only bet on four (Adams, Williams, Bardem and Rush). I do mean that literally, though. If you asked me to wager money, I'd go on those four. I'd wager that Hawkes, Leo, and Weaver don't make it, and hedge on the rest.

3. To skip ahead, I'm a little startled you're so dismissive of Garfield's chances. Like dws, I was blown away by Garfield in Boy A and figured he would cross over sooner rather than later (The Social Network and Spider-man simply confirm that theory). I'm assuming that the superhero flick will consume too much of his time for really good movies over the next five years, though, and that's a shame.

Of the almost made-its, I would think Sam Rockwell might finally sneak through (though he didn't quite almost make it as much as he was mentioned early on). It'll also be interesting to see where Mila Kunis goes.

4. Both the Coens and Mike Leigh received their first writing nod in 1996. They celebrated their fifth side-by-side as well. Thought that was a fun little note of trivia.



Edited By Okri on 1299469343