The Oscars 2017 on ABC | 89th Academy Awards | Discuss It Live Here | Super Sale to Honor the Steve Harvey moment! (p124)

[misafeco]

43 minutes ago, Telemachos said:

I feel the opposite. I think preferential balloting has made the Oscars way more interesting -- and potentially more relevant -- than they've been in quite awhile. 

Would you agree to make every other category voted by preferential ballot?

[Plain Old Tele]

Just now, misafeco said:

Would you agree to make every other category voted by preferential ballot?

 

I wouldn't be opposed to it. But that seems like a huge change that's unlikely to happen anytime soon -- I don't think there's the same sort of pushback against the winners of the other categories. But it makes sense to be consistent. 

[Valonqar]

7 minutes ago, Telemachos said:

 

Genre movies have never really won. They usually don't even get nominated -- in recent years (last 15 or so) they've actually gotten nominated more often. 

 

But all this goes back to the source issue: with occasional exception, the studios aren't making these sorts of movies and giving full rein to the talented creatives to enable them. Top-shelf genre talent is now (mostly) sidetracked doing franchise movies -- which might be entertaining but rarely distinguish themselves as worthy of being considered the very best of the best.

 

That's very true. I just find it really irritating that when such movie comes along (Gravity, Fury Road) they don't award it Best Picture, even though such movies are their bread and butter, but go for predictable "important" pick. Gravity and MM:FR had just as stellar reviews as 12YS and Spotlight, whether one or the other had perfect 100 or 99 is relaly no point. AMPAS could have awarded the Picture to them. But they didn't. How's that going to encourage quality genre movies? How's that going to encourage the next LOTR? Like, what if Villeneuve's Dune is a masterpiece? You know that it will lose to another "AMPAS reacts to Trump's fart #100000000" movie. Movies like that can never win because preferential ballot prevents them. It's designed to give boost to "reaction" voting.

Edited February 28, 2017 by Valonqar

[Barnack]

18 minutes ago, Telemachos said:

 the studios aren't making these sorts of movies and giving full rein to the talented creatives to enable them

 

And the academy rarely miss a chance to nominate a big studio movie, when they do a big spectacle non franchise movie from time to time, they have a really good chance to get in a much higher chance that low budget output.

 

Arrival, The Martian, The Revenant, MadMax, Avatar, Inception, Gravity, Django Unchained, Life of Pi, there is not that many big movie in recent year's that were snubbed. A good argument could be made for Guardian of the Galaxy that could have been there, Force Awaken, Gone Girl and maybe a bit more of the big animated movie could have made it in best picture, but not that much more than that were Oscar material.

Edited February 28, 2017 by Barnack

[Plain Old Tele]

2 minutes ago, Valonqar said:

 

That's very true. I just find it really irritating that when such movie comes along (Gravity, Fury Road) they don't award it Best Picture, even though such movies are their bread and butter, but go for predictable "important" pick. Gravity and MM:FR had just as stellar reviews as 12YS and Spotlight, whether one or the other had perfect 100 or 99 is relaly no point. AMPAS could have awarded the Picture to them. But they didn't. How's that going to encourage quality genre movies? How's that going to encourage the next LOTR? Like, what if Villeneuve's Dune is a masterpiece? You know that it will lose to another "AMPAS reacts to Trump's fart #100000000" movie. Movies like that can never win because preferential ballot prevents them. It's designed to give boost to "reaction" voting.

 

I don't know how long you've been here before you started posting, but I'm a *huge* MMFR fan. Far and away that was my fave of 2015, and it's actually high on my Greatest Movies list. But, unfortunately, it wasn't the main competitor for SPOTLIGHT -- THE REVENANT was. And in MMFR's case, it probably lost for many of the same reasons I love it -- just a little too out there, a little too weird. Any time you're asking a large group of people to vote on something, you're usually gonna end up with choices that reflect a general consensus -- the fringe options tend to fall away. We experienced that here on BOT when we did our Top 25 of 2016 -- it's not a bad list but some of the quirkier, more off-beat choices (even ones that had significant, vocal support) missed out. 

 

In any case, I guess you can see it as a glass half-empty or half-full situation. That something like MMFR or D9 or GRAVITY gets nominated is awesome! And one of these days a genre movie will win. It happened in 2003 and it'll happen again. 

[Valonqar]

Nomination isn't a problem. They like to do that thinking ratings will improve but people are not stupid. if you nominate Star Wars but Minuscule Indie Movie Nobody But Snobs Cares About keeps winning everything, that right there tells you whether you should sit through 4.5 hour slogfest to see if Star Wars will win.  

 

@Telemachos I agree that MMFR was not the runner-up (another problem with awards, it's always down to one or two and everyone else is just a background with no hope to upset). But, they could have supported it more. There's no excuse for Gravity snub, though. They gave Cuaron the Director. Picture/Director splits are stupid. It's a trend that won't go away. ROTK will remain the only win but at least we have that. And it was glorious. All those small, forgettable winners will never have that.

Edited February 28, 2017 by Valonqar

[Barnack]

5 minutes ago, Valonqar said:

 

Movies like that can never win because preferential ballot prevents them. It's designed to give boost to "reaction" voting.

 

Can you explain how that is the case, preferential make it hard for a passion pick to win and favorise consensus it seem to me, how that boost reaction voting ?

 

Also it has been a long time since we got a partisan type of political movie winning, except if pedophile priest or free well funded press is seen as a partisan issue now ? (if you ever see Moonlight I think you will be surprised by how much it is not political in the sense you think, for example there is nothing about white being racist or white guilt or anything like that or political even when he get arrested by the cops it is by a black women cops to make sure nothing about that come taint the movie)

[Plain Old Tele]

1 minute ago, Valonqar said:

Nomination isn't a problem. They like to do that thinking ratings will improve but people are not stupid. if you nominate Star Wars but Minuscule Indie Movie Nobody But Snobs Cares About keeps winning everything, that right there tells you whether you should sit through 4.5 hour slogfest to see if Star Wars will win.  

 

This is incredibly reductive. First of all, just because you don't care about an indie movie doesn't mean others don't. And there can be a real pleasure in discovering a movie you might've never seen before if it hadn't been for noticing it got an award. 

 

Secondly, people watch the Oscars for a lot of reasons. Some do it because they just like movies in general. Some people like to do the whole fashion/commentary thing (either with parties or not). Some people are rooting for movies, some don't care. 

[Plain Old Tele]

5 minutes ago, Valonqar said:

I agree that MMFR was not the runner-up (another problem with awards, it's always down to one or two and everyone else is just a background with no hope to upset). But, they could have supported it more. There's no excuse for Gravity snub, though. They gave Cuaron the Director. Picture/Director splits are stupid. It's a trend that won't go away. ROTK will remain the only win but at least we have that. And it was glorious. All those small, forgettable winners will never have that.

 

As much as I would've liked to see MMFR win BP (or, even more so, Miller win BD), I can't really quibble about it winning basically every technical award. It seems very petty to do that, especially given what the movie was and how it came to be (miracles upon miracles).

 

And while I personally disagree with this take on GRAVITY, there are plenty of people who saw it as essentially a giant thrill ride and not much more. In that regard, I can understand giving Cuaron BD for its technical brilliance but being unwilling to go all the way with BP. In any case, it'd be really interesting to see vote totals -- I wonder how close it was.

[Valonqar]

5 minutes ago, Telemachos said:

 

As much as I would've liked to see MMFR win BP (or, even more so, Miller win BD), I can't really quibble about it winning basically every technical award. It seems very petty to do that, especially given what the movie was and how it came to be (miracles upon miracles).

 

And while I personally disagree with this take on GRAVITY, there are plenty of people who saw it as essentially a giant thrill ride and not much more. In that regard, I can understand giving Cuaron BD for its technical brilliance but being unwilling to go all the way with BP. In any case, it'd be really interesting to see vote totals -- I wonder how close it was.

 

I think it was super close in BP but a large margin in favor of Cuaron in Director. He made everyone a non-entity, though Marty showed youthful vigor in his directing of WOWS. 

 

Also, AMPAS should stop discriminating against thrill rides. Raiders is a thrill ride and it's a timeless classic, unlike AMPAS recent winners.

Edited February 28, 2017 by Valonqar

[misafeco]

16 minutes ago, Telemachos said:

 

I don't know how long you've been here before you started posting, but I'm a *huge* MMFR fan. Far and away that was my fave of 2015, and it's actually high on my Greatest Movies list. But, unfortunately, it wasn't the main competitor for SPOTLIGHT -- THE REVENANT was.

The Big Short was.  

It's kind of frustrating for me that my favorites always lose Best Picture. La La Land, The Big Short, Boyhood, Gravity... Damn it AMPAS!  Every one of them were so close.

[Jason]

58 minutes ago, misafeco said:

Honestly this preferential ballot system needs to go. Tactical vote can make a difference. Frontrunners are always more vulnerable which makes the outcome unpredictable. If I want my favorite movie to win, I just leave every other frontrunners off my list. It makes the show exciting but I'd just prefer the popular vote which is the case in every other category.

 

Plurality voting is actually much more susceptible to tactical voting than run-off preferential voting. In plurality voting, someone who really has "Manchester by the Sea" or "Hell or High Water" as a favourite could vote tactically against the perceived frontrunner ("La La Land") by voting for "Moonlight", knowing that their true preference has no chance of winning.

 

What you describe as tactical voting actually would not work. The additional choices on your ballot are only counted if your first choice has already been eliminated. So you cannot help your first choice by choosing not to vote for any of the other choices. The only way to vote tactically in run-off voting requires you to have very detailed knowledge of the ordered preferences of the other voters, which is almost never the case certainly not in Oscar voting.

 

A frontrunner doesn't lose in preferential voting because of tactical voting, it loses because of weak second-choice support. The only reason why the outcome is "unpredictable" is because the system is new and people are still using the same predictors of the winner they used for the old system - the so-called "precursor awards". Which, as far as I'm aware, are using plurality voting.

 

I'm not particularly fussed about who wins the Oscar either way, but in principle preferential voting is more reflective of the broad preferences of a group of voters than plurality voting, where a candidate can win because of vote-splitting between other candidates that are mutually preferred by a majority of voters.

[Plain Old Tele]

2 minutes ago, misafeco said:

The Big Short was.  

It's kind of frustrating for me that my favorites always lose Best Picture. La La Land, The Big Short, Boyhood, Gravity... Damn it AMPAS!  Every one of them were so close.

 

I'm with you for three of your four examples.  

[titanic2187]

13 minutes ago, misafeco said:

The Big Short was.  

It's kind of frustrating for me that my favorites always lose Best Picture. La La Land, The Big Short, Boyhood, Gravity... Damn it AMPAS!  Every one of them were so close.

at least la la land and gravity were the biggest winner of the night, both of them grab best director award, boyhood was a bit disaster......while the big short got best adapted screenplay

You know why la la land and gravity lost despite big winning? They didn't get screenplay...

AMPAS now seem is zero tolerance that the best picture winner is not the best screenplay winner.....spotlight last year won best picture with just another awards, which was best original screenplay

[Barnack]

33 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

A frontrunner doesn't lose in preferential voting because of tactical voting, it loses because of weak second-choice support

 

That what people are calling tactical voting I would think.

 

Say someone number one movie of the year is Moonlight and want Moonlight to win, maybe is second/third favorite is La la land but he write instead movied that has no chance to win in position 2 to 5 and leave La la land out to help Moonlight.

 

Some voting in the nhl give in details the result (how many number 1,2,3,4,5 vote each people got) and sometime it is obvious that someone did leave a favorite and clear top 3 best player that year out of is ballot completely to help is number one choice. It is rare (say 1 or 2 among 30 voters) but it happen.

Edited February 28, 2017 by Barnack

[Cmasterclay]

Arrival was the worst of this year's nine nominees IMO, and I love alot of sci-fi AND the director's previous movies. Just goes to show that maybe people have different tastes than you, and that there's not just some snobbish vendetta against big movies. Plenty of big populist choices have won. 

[Jason]

2 minutes ago, Barnack said:

That what people are calling tactical voting I would think.

 

Say someone number one movie of the year is Moonlight and want Moonlight to win, maybe is second/third favorite is La la land but he write instead movie that has no chance to win and leave Moonlight off to help it win.

 

Some voting in the nhl give in details the result (how many number 1,2,3,4,5 vote each people got) and sometime it is obvious that someone did leave a favorite and clear top 3 best player that year out of is ballot completely to help is number one choice. It is rare (say 1 or 2 among 30 voters) but it happen.

 

It's not what misafeco was describing, and it's very rare for that type of tactical voting to be used (most people aren't aware of it), and rarer still for it to be successful. Knowing which choice to rank first instead your true first-choice requires detailed knowledge of the down-ballot preferences of the other voters, which usually isn't available and certainly not for Best Picture voting. Even then, it requires a certain number of people of people to vote tactically, if too many voters adopt the tactic it also fails.

[Valonqar]

21 minutes ago, titanic2187 said:

at least la la land and gravity were the biggest winner of the night, both of them grab best director award, boyhood was a bit disaster......while the big short got best adapted screenplay

You know why la la land and gravity lost despite big winning? They didn't get screenplay...

AMPAS now seem is zero tolerance that the best picture winner is not the best screenplay winner.....spotlight last year won best picture with just another awards, which was best original screenplay

 

This is an excellent observation. They seem to think that winning screenplay justifies Best Picture more than Best Director win. I disagree because good direction can improve on a clunky script (Jurassic park, really stupid script, really brilliant direction, classic movie) and bad direction can ruin a decent/good script. But whatever. It seems like BP winner can now only win script (2 wins total) or script and supporting (3 wins total). Does that have something to do with script-writer strike so they pander to them more now? Silver lining: in that case, Titanic/ROTK/Ben Hur record tying 11 wins will never be broken. 

Edited February 28, 2017 by Valonqar

[Barnack]

1 minute ago, Jason said:

 

It's not what misafeco was describing, and it's very rare for that type of tactical voting to be used (most people aren't aware of it), and rarer still for it to be successful. Knowing which choice to rank first instead your true first-choice requires detailed knowledge of the down-ballot preferences of the other voters, which usually isn't available and certainly not for Best Picture voting. Even then, it requires a certain number of people of people to vote tactically, if too many voters adopt the tactic it also fails.

 

I don't think anyone will vote for something number one in a strategic way, like you say that is a bit complicated and it will be rare for that strategy to help more than you simply voting your favorite number 1.

 

But "lying" about your second to 5 choice (or at least your top 3), by putting only movies that are not a treat to your favorite choice even if some of the frontrunner are in your top 5 in reality is extremely easy to do.

[Jason]

4 minutes ago, Barnack said:

But "lying" about your second to 5 choice (or at least your top 3), by putting only movies that are not a treat to your favorite choice even if some of the frontrunner are in your top 5 in reality is extremely easy to do.

 

But lying about your down-ballot choices makes absolutely no difference to your first choice, because they are only counted if your first choice has already been eliminated, as I've described.

 

You absolutely cannot help or harm your first choice by the order of your down-ballot choices. This isn't just my conjecture, it's a known property of run-off voting.