Jason

I'd like the second Zootopia write-up.

Arrival felt like it was pretending to say something profound about language, co-operation, and game theory, but it really wasn't. It's not that I disagree with the broad messages or themes, I just think the treatment was superficial at best, and fundamentally wrong in some of the details, especially regarding the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. It wasn't saying anything about time at all, although I don't even know if it was pretending to. Best to not get me started on the "time is a flat circle" stuff. I know I'm probably taking it too literally. Also, this is probably a very personal problem, but I really didn't like the portrayal of Ian. No scientist I've ever met (and I've met a lot) would say anything as ignorant or arrogant as some of the lines he's given. To be clear, I think the film was very well-made, with beautiful visuals and a terrific performance from Amy Adams. So I didn't hate it. I was just very disappointed, compared with what I expected based on reviews etc.

Who has the best chance of beating Coolio in the BOFFIES? I need to know now, they have my vote.

My parents did, they loved it as well. I was actually surprised given the box office performance how many people were in my theatre on a Thursday night, at least 20. But then again, only a few theatres in Toronto were showing it.

Can confirm that is too low.

Wow, that's probably mostly off of overseas BOT members. Wonder how high Your Name would have been if it had been given a release in North America outside of one theatre in L.A.

PSA: Reminder to everyone that Google Search results are personalized.

That scene doesn't directly humanize the Japanese generally. But it shows that the hero of the film recognizes the humanity of the enemy. That's hard to reconcile with the film being pro-war. I don't even know what to say to this - so you do think that the film would have been less pro-war if it had sanitized the number of casualties? I think it's understood and expected that everyone else is there to kill each other, Americans and the Japanese alike, with the single exception of Desmond Doss. I don't see how showing that makes the film pro-war. The former scene is more easily read as anti-Japanese rather than pro-war. It's not showing anything that a Canadian audience wouldn't familiar with from history class though, and I presume the same would be true in America. The latter scene is part of a film whose broad strokes are clearly anti-war and pacifist for most people. I think you're focusing on the wrong things. Before that scene, I already thought it was clear he had been screwed up by the war. Crying, mourning, drinking, and a volatile mood/outbursts of anger all seemed pretty intuitively a result of the war, and the line "I wish you knew him before the war" essentially states that he was different before the war. That can't imply anything else other than the war damaging him, unless you think it's normal for people to say things without intending any meaning. No, he didn't face hell for nothing. He faced hell to make sure everyone understood that he absolutely wouldn't use one. That was the point. The problem isn't that he'd be afraid he might use it during battle. It's that if he's carrying a rifle he's been trained to use, and everyone else knows he's been trained to use it, and they're under enemy fire, everyone else could have the reasonable expectation that he would use it, and behave accordingly - relying on him to return fire. Only by not carrying it all from day one can he make it explicitly clear he absolutely will not use it. Again, I thought this was all obvious.

Well, I wasn't planning on my first post here to be a reply to someone else's - so I guess I'll start off by admitting this was a very powerfully emotional film for me, that I thought did an excellent job of conveying both the horror of war and the heroism and conviction of Desmond Doss, conscientious objector. (I'm one of the "A" votes.) The film also makes it explicitly clear the reason why he was so against war and why he turned into a "scumbag" was because the aftereffects of his experiences in the First World War turned him that way. There's a line where Doss's mother explains that to him. Also, the film shows how awful war is in a way a lot of war films avoid, and has as its protagonist someone who is absolutely committed to the belief that killing is wrong. The hero of the film is shown saving the lives of some of the Japanese when the opportunity arises. As for everyone else, I'm not expecting a World War II film from any participating country to be show anything other than determination to kill the enemy in general. I don't see how that basic reality glorifies war, by itself. I didn't get feeling that the music at the end was meant to be "murica fuck yeah" music glorifying war, either. Just that the battle was over, and Doss had done his part. Everyone else I know who has seen this film has gotten a strong anti-war, pacifist sense from it. It's also the position taken by quite a few critics, although I'll admit I haven't read all the reviews. If the film's intention was to be pro-war, it's doing a terrible job of it. I thought this was obvious. What's the point of training with a weapon you're absolutely committed to not using? Once you've compromised to carry a weapon during training and demonstration, you can compromise to carry it into a battle too. ("Well, you don't have to kill anyone with it if you don't want to.") Best to make clear the strength of your conviction from the start. I felt like the scenes you mention were there more to help show the roots of his conviction that killing was wrong and that guns were a temptation rather than why he wouldn't specifically touch them.

What choice are you referring to? The only thing I can think of is the decision to lie to Kubo's grandfather - but I didn't spend a moment wondering if that was the right choice or not. Perhaps there's another choice made that I'm missing?

I generally prefer preferential voting with fully ranked ballots but for this I'd recommend a two-round runoff, where a run-off occurs only between the top two choices, using only second choice support from the remaining ballots (that had their first choice eliminated). My reasoning is it's theoretically possible for a nominee with very weak first choice support to end up winning entirely on the strength of being widely viewed, with other nominees being eliminated not because they were placed at a lower rank, but because many ballots left them unranked. That's a distinction of little relevance in voting for political candidates, but potentially an important one here. A two-round runoff would ensure that one of the candidates being hurt by a vote-split would have the opportunity to contend for the win, while also ensuring the winner is one that is a high-ranking choice (first or second) on a majority of ballots. I actually agree with Panda that the chance of a nominee winning mainly on the strength of third choice, fourth choice support etc. is low (although I don't think we can estimate how low with any precision). But a two-round runoff would entirely eliminate the risk of that happening.

There's a glitch for films released in 2005 or earlier that causes to number of voters to exceed 33 million. In my mind, that makes the calculation for average rating and score fundamentally suspect. That begin said, there are admittedly other films with 33M+ votes that don't have an unreasonably low rating and score. For example, Finding Nemo has 34M votes with an average rating of 3.9 and score of 86%, which is certainly lower than recent well-loved films, but could possibly be in line with the natural drop in scores over time.

In local currency, the current total of Resident Evil 6 (Final Chapter) is ¥3.96B (as of Jan. 22), Resident Evil 4 (Afterlife) is ¥4.7B, and Resident Evil 5 (Retribution) is ¥3.8B. I think Final Chapter might pass Afterlife by the end of its run in local currency, but definitely not in USD.

Beauty and the Beast Coco Your Name The Red Turtle Dunkirk Star Wars Episode VIII The LEGO Batman Movie Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 Wonder Woman Despicable Me 3

Good job BOT! Loved Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Silence, and Hacksaw Ridge, really glad to see they made Best Picture. (Loved Zootopia too of course, but I knew it was going to make it.) Thanks @Spaghetti by the Sea and @The Panda for putting this together! And to everyone who voted. One very, very minor quibble:

This is the same Mune that was submitted to the Academy for consideration in 2016, although I can't confirm that they did in fact have a Los Angeles theatrical release before December 31.

Funimation never even submitted it for consideration. So the Animation Branch absolutely cannot be blamed for not recognizing it.

Facts aren't decided by popular opinion. You should know this. The simplest explanation for why Disney/Pixar/DW films have been getting nominations is because they're actually better films to most people, not just those who work at those studios. Not necessarily in terms of technical merits, but overall. None of the several hundred critics who contribute to scores on Rotten Tomatoes work for WDAS/Pixar/Dreamworks, but they've also rated those films more highly than other animated films. Without needing to do a proper multiple regression analysis, there is absolutely no effect favouring films distributed by at least WDAS/Pixar when taking into account critical reception. Quite the contrary, there's a small but almost certainly non-significant effect against WDAS/Pixar, in that their films need a slightly higher rating (compared to the either the submission or nominating average for that year) to have a high likelihood of nomination. Dreamworks is in about the middle of the pack. Again, almost certainly not meaningful. The differences are all very small, about a few tenths of a rating point. I really don't have time to do a full analysis showing just how unlikely it is that there's a popularity/awareness effect, or a studio effect. But there are numerous counterexamples. Explain why Boy and the World was nominated (foreign, independent, unknown), or why any number of Universal, Sony, or WB films were nominated despite being neither independent, nor WDAS/Pixar/Dreamworks, while not having particularly strong overall reception. Simply put, your opinion is inconsistent with the overall pattern of nominations. The better explanation for why those films missed a nomination is because the Animation Branch genuinely thought more highly of their competitors, for reasons other than awareness or self-rewarding bias.

This is awesome. Really appreciated, something came up today that's been keeping me stupidly busy. Just realized it was well after midnight.

I don't really want to re-open that discussion, DamienRoc has done good job explaining this in the past - but the fact is, when you look at the actual data, some of which are categorical variables (which, as I think you know, can still be analyzed), the evidence suggests the most likely reason for The Lego Movie missing is because of being excluded by other animated films that had essentially equal strength of critical reception, or stronger technical merits. There's a lot of evidence that contradicts any type of studio, distributor, or country bias (relative to general critical reception), those possibilities can be excluded. A bias against anime can neither be demonstrated nor excluded, because very few non-Ghibli anime films have been submitted.

I can see why a number of other categories are affected by campaigns - in ranked ballots, awareness will often be a more important factor than the average level of reception. The Animation Branch process is different, and shouldn't be affected by awareness level unless personal perceptions are being influenced by knowledge of other opinions. That really shouldn't happen for professionals. It certainly didn't make the Animation Branch nominate The Lego Movie. That's something I can't understand. Why would you? It's not like anyone would see and be like "oh, look, they're a pleb because they liked x movie". Maybe, sure. I just don't think it's likely awareness would have made a difference. Previous films with very little awareness have been nominated, essentially whenever they have a high level of critical reception. It just hasn't been a predictive factor in the past. The fundamental problem Your Name was up against is that this was a ridiculously competitive year. In a race with essentially four films competing for three spots (if you can accept Zootopia and Kubo as locks) and all other films as very unlikely, one film had to miss. Your Name ended up with the lowest average rating of those four from members of the Animation Branch. I would ascribe that to those who viewed it, on average, not thinking it was quite as good, possibly because of a bias against anime, possibly because of technical factors I can't quantify. If you really think awareness is an important factor, we'll have to agree to disagree. Because as far as I can tell, the data says otherwise.

I'm skeptical that being told other people like a film should make most people feel differently about it compared to the weight of all the other factors that affect our perceptions. Even more skeptical that the Animation Branch would be influenced in that way, given the weight of their additional knowledge and experience with animated films. Do you really think you'd rate a film more highly in a secret ballot just because you knew a lot of other people liked it? I'm very sure I wouldn't.

Not going to lie, I'm a bit apprehensive about this one. Going to watch it anyway, but only because it's a Best Animated Feature nominee. Helps that living in downtown Toronto means I won't have to go out of my way to see it. P.S. I completely forgot I made this thread until your comment in the Your Name thread. Took the excuse to bump it.

I think Funimation's biggest mistake was to give it a qualifying release in 2016. Especially given that their wider North American release is going to be in April, which means that even if it had been nominated it would be of limited benefit. That being said, I do agree that their promotion of it was piss-poor. Just doubt that the Animation Branch is likely to be influenced much by a promotion campaign.

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