87TH ACADEMY AWARDS CEREMONY DISCUSSION THREAD AAAHHH! | Discuss It Live Here

[Walt Disney]

The Academy isn't trying to do anything, the members just nominate the movies they like. In fact, if anything, this year you should give them credit for nominating SNIPER well before there was any significant commercial groundswell. It's also worth pointing out that most of the nominees aren't indie movies.

 

I do give them credit for nominating Sniper. But, they also snubbed Eastwood, and I believe that was a political decision. However, fair point that they're mostly not indie movies. But, that strengthens my point (in my mind at least) because they're major studio films that people choose to ignore. It's tough to make an award have any meaning when movies that people actively ignore are being called best pictures.

 

And I'm not even upset that Birdman won. I'm more upset in the overall quality of the best picture choices. Movies like Gone Girl and Interstellar should have been given a nomination over a lot of the nominees.

 

I understand that the Academy isn't trying to do anything. And it shows because the Oscars were really boring this year. I wish they would try a little harder to do something.

[MrPink]

Oh, right. How's Vietnam? New Year must be fun.

The cycle is like this...

Wake up.

Eat breakfast.

Drink coffee.

Snack.

Meet family.

Eat lunch.

Siesta time.

Wake up.

Snack.

Meet more family.

Eat dinner. Drink lots.

Go home.

Snack.

Repeat cycle.

So much food...

[Fancyarcher]

Well Julianne Moore did a pretty good speech. Neil Patrick Harris was not as bad as I thought he be.

Thought Hotel was going to win picture for a while. (Which I finally saw right before the Oscars)

And the song from Beyond the Stars must of been pretty bad as I don't even remember it. (or maybe it wasn't that bad as I probably still remember it if it was terrible)

 

Beyond the Lights not Beyond the Stars Impact. Still the song was pretty bad.

[Ozymandias]

American Sniper will be the movie nominated that people will remember. Most of the others are going to fade. They may achieve cult status, but I don't see them being remembered by most people.

 

That's my problem with the Oscars recently. They are trying so hard to nominate movies that most people haven't bothered to see. I'm not saying that every nominee needs to be a big blockbuster. But, the best pictures aren't the ones that the majority of the public chooses to ignore.

 

But popularity shouldn't have anything to do with being nominated imo.  I agree with crap like The Artist(WTF?) and The King's Speech being nominated and winning is just asking for people to tune out every year, but BIRDMAN while not my first, second, or third choice for Best Picture, is a memorable film unlike those 2.  Actually, I think its probably the 2nd best Superhero film behind TDK(Yeah yeah Birdman technically isn't a superhero flick but it has a lot to do with the genre).

 

I'll be honest, I was so bored with the Oscars that I turned it off about 2/3 of the way through. I'm not sure who the Oscars are for, but they're definitely not making the show for me. And I'm a huge movie fan.

 

I didn't even bother watching them this year and just watched TV while browsing this thread for updates instead.  Not just because my 3 favorite films of the year weren't even nominated for BP (Nightcrawler, Gone Girl, Locke), but the Oscar ceremonies themselves have become practically unwatchable to me.  They are just so badly done and cringe inducing now that I just can't do it and apparently this was the worst one in awhile.

Edited February 23, 2015 by Ozymandias

[Sam]

The cycle is like this...

Wake up.

Eat breakfast.

Drink coffee.

Snack.

Meet family.

Eat lunch.

Siesta time.

Wake up.

Snack.

Meet more family.

Eat dinner. Drink lots.

Go home.

Snack.

Repeat cycle.

So much food...

That's the life.

I want it.

[Walt Disney]

Movies that get big audiences don't usually do so because of how good they are, though. They tend to get em based on how well/much they're advertised.

 

I don't believe that. There are lots of movies that make decent box office numbers without great advertising. Then, there are movies like My Big Fat Greek Wedding which absolutely break out in a big way.

[Dementeleus]

I do give them credit for nominating Sniper. But, they also snubbed Eastwood, and I believe that was a political decision. However, fair point that they're mostly not indie movies. But, that strengthens my point (in my mind at least) because they're major studio films that people choose to ignore.

Why would it be a political decision? The Academy loves Eastwood. You could argue that SNIPER made it in largely *because* of Eastwood.

In terms of people "ignoring" a bunch of the nominees... they didn't. The bigger films you mention have super-wide releases with significant marketing budgets. Give all the nominees the same sort of release patterns and marketing, and you'd have a different story in terms of grosses.

[Walt Disney]

But popularity shouldn't have anything to do with being nominated imo.  I agree with crap like The Artist(WTF?) and The King's Speech being nominated and winning is just asking for people to tune out every year, but BIRDMAN while not my first, second, or third choice for Best Picture, is a memorable film unlike those 2.  Actually, I think its probably the 2nd best Superhero film behind TDK(Yeah yeah Birdman technically isn't a superhero flick but it has a lot to do with the genre).

 

 

I didn't even bother watching them this year and just watched TV while browsing this thread for updates instead.  Not just because my 3 favorite films of the year weren't even nominated for BP (Nightcrawler, Gone Girl, Locke), but the Oscar ceremonies themselves have become practically unwatchable to me.  They are just so badly done and cringe inducing now that I just can't do it.

 

I'm not mad about Birdman winning. I really don't like the trend more than anything. Birdman winning is fine with me, even if it wouldn't have been my choice.

 

I agree with you completely about the ceremony. They are going out of their way to produce horrible Oscar shows. The SNL 40th anniversary was much more entertaining. And I know the Oscars is an awards show, but since they're trying so hard to be entertaining, they should at least be somewhat entertaining.

[BoxOfficeZ]

I'm frankly astonished Interstellar didn't win best score. Budapest's OST is good, but Zimmer outdid himself. 

 

Nice job Birdman. 

[Dementeleus]

I don't believe that. There are lots of movies that make decent box office numbers without great advertising. Then, there are movies like My Big Fat Greek Wedding which absolutely break out in a big way.

At least half the BP nominees made "decent boxoffice", and when you start to add in other major categories you get quite a bit more very successful movies (like GONE GIRL). The problem is that it's pretty rare now for studios to throw any sort of serious budget (production or marketing) at anything other than tentpole franchises, and those are largely concerned with spectacle over anything else.

[SchumacherFTW]

Ugh, fucking British press. The headline on the BBC website is Eddie Redmayne wins Best Actor, not Birdman wins Best Actor. Fuck this country.

[Walt Disney]

Why would it be a political decision? The Academy loves Eastwood. You could argue that SNIPER made it in largely *because* of Eastwood.

In terms of people "ignoring" a bunch of the nominees... they didn't. The bigger films you mention have super-wide releases with significant marketing budgets. Give all the nominees the same sort of release patterns and marketing, and you'd have a different story in terms of grosses.

 

Big studios would pump more money into marketing a lot of the nominees if they had a chance to make it back at the box office. Studios aren't actively saying lets just give superhero films big marketing campaigns because we don't like artsy Oscar bait films. They're doing it because they know those are the films that will give them their biggest return on investment.

 

If you gave films the same marketing budgets, most of the same films would dominate the BO. Because those are the films that people want to pay to see. American Sniper isn't big because of its budget. It's big because it was something the general audience wanted to see.

[MrPink]

I'm frankly astonished Interstellar didn't win best score. Budapest's OST is good, but Zimmer outdid himself.

Nice job Birdman.

I love Interstellar's score but I'm glad Budapest won over something like Theory of Everything

[BoxOfficeZ]

I love Interstellar's score but I'm glad Budapest won over something like Theory of Everything

 

I can agree with that. 

[Dementeleus]

Big studios would pump more money into marketing a lot of the nominees if they had a chance to make it back at the box office. Studios aren't actively saying lets just give superhero films big marketing campaigns because we don't like artsy Oscar bait films. They're doing it because they know those are the films that will give them their biggest return on investment.

 

If you gave films the same marketing budgets, most of the same films would dominate the BO. Because those are the films that people want to pay to see. American Sniper isn't big because of its budget. It's big because it was something the general audience wanted to see.

And yet, a lot of times the "smaller" films do offer a better rate of return than the large ones (although granted it's less money). The studios are locked in on home runs but they only want to swing six times a year, as opposed to doubling that output but also going for singles, doubles, and triples. The US movie-going public hasn't dramatically changed its tastes from 20 years ago, when non-tentpole movies routinely got a decent budget and ad campaign. (The real culprit here are the marketing budgets). I didn't think INTERSTELLAR was worthy of a nomination, but if it had gotten one, it would the exception to the rule -- like Sniper -- where you have a director making a big-budget movie not aimed at a CBM/teen/action demographic.

[Jandrew]

Its actually cool that Birdman won, considering most everyone (including me) was all "the Academy wont accept this, its too out there." Ya feel.

[Ozymandias]

Lol so glad American Sniper, an adult oriented R-rated drama is gonna beat all the fanboy movies this year for #1 at the boxoffice, thats probably not gonna happen again for a very long time.  Haters gonna haaaate.

[Dementeleus]

Its actually cool that Birdman won, considering most everyone (including me) was all "the Academy wont accept this, its too out there." Ya feel.

 

And yet, in retrospect, it's right in their wheelhouse.

[Chewy]

Oh gosh, a "why aren't more blockbusters nominated for Oscars" argument

 

Because if they only nominated big blockbusters that everyone saw, studios would stop funding a lot of the other, smaller fare

 

Awards season is the main reason a lot of these movies find an audience. The big dumb blockbusters already have their audience

[Deep Wang]

I guess I'm surprised that everyone is surprised by all of this. I'm new to all the prognostication with awards season, but this was foretold wasn't it?

That's what upsets me most is that there is a clear path each year and whike there are exceptions, it get's really predictable. So as a lover of Boyhood I didn't for one second think that it was actually going to win.

I also think they need to ditch the fucking host. Just have the presenters and all that shit and skip a "host."