Unofficial Academy Awards Discussion Board

Reza wrote:

ITALIANO wrote: Of course, knowing the American psychology as I do now, I understand that simply getting back to the old five-nominees format (which, I agree, sooner or later will happen anyway) would have been like admitting defeat, so they must have really spent months trying to find an acceptable way out. /quote]

So true of so many other situations as well. Lol

You said it

[quote="ITALIANO"] Of course, knowing the American psychology as I do now, I understand that simply getting back to the old five-nominees format (which, I agree, sooner or later will happen anyway) would have been like admitting defeat, so they must have really spent months trying to find an acceptable way out. /quote]

So true of so many other situations as well. Lol

It's a better alternative to that dreadful 10-nominees rule change - it's clear that they realized (and, I'm sure, right from the first year) that this had been a big mistake, that no country - certainly not the US nowadays - produce ten "best films" per year and that by nominating ANY even slightly successful movie the honor itself feels less prestigious. Of course, knowing the American psychology as I do now, I understand that simply getting back to the old five-nominees format (which, I agree, sooner or later will happen anyway) would have been like admitting defeat, so they must have really spent months trying to find an acceptable way out.

It's not like this compromise result doesn't make sense. But when you leave the old notion of the fixed number of nominees - which could even be an understandable choice - then you should do it in every category, because it's a philosophical change, a complete change of perspective. And that would be, of course, crazy. Plus, in this often confused and confusing world of today's communications and media, unfortunately one has to be clear, to send a clear message, and this vague, uncertain version will prove difficult to "get" for many, and thus less effective.

I have no idea of how it will work in terms of the level of the nominees. It's possible, of course, that we'll lose both The Blind Side and The Tree of Life.

I don't know if saying sorry is appropriate, but I will say thank you.

I kinda feel bad for sijmen. I mean, he basically developed a logarithm.

I'll say it again. It's all going to go back to normal next year. This has disaster written all over it and then it's back to five nominees.

I love how everyone seeks to minimize my frustration by trying to aggravate the situation...

I have spent countless years developing web pages and spreadsheets to track nominations, track my successes and other items. We're not talking about some major corporation who just throws money at some random website builders to develop their backbone. We're talking hours-to-days of blood, sweat and tears, to get to a point where everything works. You know that project you just spent the last fifteen years of your life working on? Yeah. Fuck that, we're scratching it. That's how I feel.

And there will not be less than 5 or more than 10. This is stated in the press release.

(by OscarGuy » Wed Jun 15, 2011 9:35 am)
How do I track such prognostications? Do I go with ten and not count those I didn't predict? Do I try to predict exactly how many and how many will fit into each? Do I make separate lists for 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 or 10 nominees? How do I track that statistically? How do I figure that into prior year's predictions? Do I predict ten, rank them and then predict that X number will get 5%? It's a colossal pain to try to figure out how to even approach this. For some of you, I'm sure this won't be that big of an issue, but it's just a pain.

I don't understand what the problem is. It's not like you WIN anything if you predict the nominees.

This is a way of saying the ten nominees thing didn't work out like they were hoping. I personally don't have a problem with ten nominees, but rather the years in which they were implemented. If they did ten nominees in 2007 or 2006, we might be looking at fantastic lineups. Or the same dreariness, but I don't wish to revive THAT conversation.

If it's five nominees, we're going to know what they're going to be. Increasing the number to ten caused the same problem. At least there's some degree of suspense come a certain January morning as to just how many movies there's going to be.

I present to you two different scenarios:

GOOD - it works. We get six nominees? Seven? It's a somewhat tighter race and the films' nominations are more...earned, shall we say?

BAD - it doesn't work. Fourteen movies are nominated. It's a hilarious failure and goes down as the year the Oscars truly did not work. Because Transformers 3 was nominated for Best Picture.


...what happens as a result:

BAD - while they can't really acknowledge that the ten movie lineup was a disaster, they can absolutely acknowledge that this was a failure and it will be very easy to go back to five nominees afterwards. Because you can't acknowledge it's a mistake unless it's okay to make a mistake. This will be the kind of mistake they can very easily go back to the status quo from.

GOOD - ...um, maybe the same thing. After this, they may be equally validated in saying WE TRIED A COUPLE OF DIFFERENT THINGS AND IT DIDN'T WORK. Or they keep it. Either way, there is no way of really knowing what is going to be nominated and that is a welcome change of pace.

Does anybody know if less than five movies could be nominated?

I would welcome any possibility to make the Oscars just a little bit more interesting, and the uncertainty of the number of nominees is one way to do this. We'll soon see whether this will benefit the blind sides vs the trees of life. I imagine that what will take a blow might be the sort of well-respected films. A large amount of passion can overcome a cooler but more widespread appreciation - an interesting parallel to contemporary celebrity culture, more generally, where having an opinion - if expressed loudly and bluntly - is generally more an asset than using boring old reason.

(Hoping to see Tree of Life soon so that I can read the thread...)

OscarGuy wrote:And BJ...I've been prognosticating the Oscars for 15 years both professionally and semi-professionally. I'm sure you're not thinking before you make such condescending comments.

Sorry, my intent was not to be condescending. That was a genuine question.

As far as prediction contests go, I'd have everyone predict ten Best Picture nominees and have them in the likeliest order they'd be nominated. In other words, if six films are nominated we see who's 1-6 choices best match up. And of course there should be a bonus question, "How many films will be nominated this year?".

The press release reads as if they placed a minimum-5 requirement on the category.

I wonder what the Academy will do if fewer than five films receive 5% first-place votes.

Tee, that would be wonderful, wouldn't it?

And BJ...I've been prognosticating the Oscars for 15 years both professionally and semi-professionally. I'm sure you're not thinking before you make such condescending comments.

No, i don't expect them to care about prognosticators. My comments were my personal opinion on the matter. People commented on my opinion and therefore I have the right to share WHY I'm frustrated with it. I don't give a shit what the Academy wants or doesn't want. That does not in the least bit change how I feel about the situation.

And I think their decision was more to frustrate organizations like the Broadcast Film Critics Association who specifically altered their rules because of the Academy. They are lashing out at them, not at critics specifically, but it's collateral damage. We have all been prognosticating for years without issue. However, when groups like the Critics' Choice Awards try desperately to be a broad predictor of the awards, that's when a lot of people started throwing fits about the lack of suspense. So, I'm as mad at the BFCA for causing the Academy to make a decision that screws me over as the Academy, but make no mistake, they shouldn't have made the change to ten in the first place. They knew what would happen. And changing the rules two years later only proves how right the rest of us were with regard to their change back then.

The Original BJ wrote:It's also interesting to learn that Price Waterhouse maintains all of its Oscar records from years past. I guess they would have to, but I hadn't really thought about it before.

I tried to post this response earlier, but others kept posting other remarks while I was doing it, and the goddamn "Do you want to read someone else's post first?" thing kept popping up; it never did post, no matter how many times I clicked on Submit. If it had been a long post I'd have been furious to lose it. Is there any way to disable that feature?

Anyway, my comment to BJ's point: I thought I'd read that PwC destroyed files after a certain point. I certainly wouldn't have expected them to have ten years' worth sitting around. In this day and age, isn't that a Wililkeaks waiting to happen?

OscarGuy wrote:How do I track such prognostications? Do I go with ten and not count those I didn't predict? Do I try to predict exactly how many and how many will fit into each? Do I make separate lists for 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 or 10 nominees? How do I track that statistically? How do I figure that into prior year's predictions? Do I predict ten, rank them and then predict that X number will get 5%? It's a colossal pain to try to figure out how to even approach this. For some of you, I'm sure this won't be that big of an issue, but it's just a pain.

You really think an organization that hands out awards of artistic merit for films should be concerned with how their rules might make it more difficult for prognosticators to organize their Excel prediction spreadsheets?

the address is listed on the old board, but it won't allow me to put html in there, so I can't create an actual clickable link. I've sent him information on multiple occasions with the new address, so I have no idea what's going on with it. As for the others, the e-mail addresses I had on file were those from the old board, so they may not be valid anymore either. So, if you know someone who's missing and have a current e-mail, please send them a link and information on coming back.