94th Academy Awards Discussion Thread | WHAT JUST HAPPENED

[filmlover]

Just now, CloneWars said:

Wait. Did Drive My Car come out of nowhere? I had to look it up. Good to see a Japanese film get the nod though. If it's good can it magically unseat Dog?

Probably not. Parasite obviously broke barriers for a foreign-language film two years ago but none of its competition ever approached "undeniable" levels of frontrunner status and the fact it did really well for a movie in a completely different language at the box office and became a mini-phenomenon even among audiences usually averse to movies entirely in subtitles gave it a nice boost that carried it to the big win. The Power of the Dog overperforming today and scoring the most nominations has pretty much solidified itself as the frontrunner for the top prize that's gonna be hard to beat.

[grim22]

Why only Spider-Man though? Is this Disney trying to influence the Academy through ABC for Marvel movies?

 

 

[titanic2187]

23 hours ago, The Panda said:

Crash had a “good message” or whatever but it was still a shit movie. There’s plenty of good movies with good messages.

But little are as effective or accessible to general audience as DLU. House of Gucci has equally shinning ensemble cast , helmed by equally Oscar friendly director with better review than DLU but was mostly ignored. The main difference between two is DLU being socially relevant and generating healthy respond from scientist or academia, a voice that should we pay more attention to especially in this era. Not saying critics who hates DLU are ignorant about the impending crisis but neither that should stop academy to use its platform to amplify the movie importance, still a way better than choice than NWH inclusion that some people try to push. dLU won’t win BP anyway, its nomination here is similar to The post inclusion, just for its importance. 

[Noctis]

1. Kristen Stewart getting is is FUCKING AWESOME. She was sensational in Spencer and deserves the nomination.

 

2. How the fucking hell did Don't Look Up get so many nominations? And I like the film but that is flat out ludicrous. 

 

3. HOW THE FUCK DID DON'T LOOK UP GET SO MANY NOMINATIONS?!

 

4. The Lost Daughter was snubbed for Best Picture.

[Noctis]

19 hours ago, grim22 said:

Her fall from being an awards darling has been amazing. 

 

She is getting desperate for one based on her interviews and role choices. Her not being nominated for Arrival is still a crazy snub though.

 

Nocturnal Animals must have gotten in the way - but her missing out on Arrival is the worst snub in acting in years. 

[BoxOfficeFangrl]

3 hours ago, grim22 said:

Why only Spider-Man though? Is this Disney trying to influence the Academy through ABC for Marvel movies?

 

 

I love that he uses Don't Look Up as the example of an ultra-serious nominee. Anyway, Oscars have had "serious" nominees since the beginning? They even had a separate category for "Unique and Artistic" movies the first year. Glad he won't be hosting again.

 

Oscar cranks tend to have the memory of a gnat and just use whatever narrative that works with the argument they're pushing at the time, even if it flies in the face of reality:  "The Oscars hate comic book movies" (Joker), "They hate the MCU" (Black Panther), "They never nominate anything popular" (Bohemian Rhapsody, 1917, A Star Is Born), "Only obvious Oscar bait ever wins" (Parasite). With streaming movies, it's easier than ever to make the "nobody watches them" argument, even if the independent Nielsen figures say otherwise. Dune leads the nominations and made almost $400 miillion globally despite the HBO Max release. I would've been absolutely fine with No Way Home in Best Picture, by the way, blockbusters have made it in before, decades ago. If you're arguing that blockbusters don't really win Best Picture these days, fair enough.

 

The Oscars are hardly perfect, but AMPAS just needs to ignore the hate-watching types who "don't care" about awards but spend countless hours complaining about them. Those people will never be satisfied and still won't really watch the show anyway. The Academy should figure out the best way to put the ceremony onto Disney+ and Hulu in real time, in addition to the ABC broadcast, I'm sure they have top lawyers who can work out something. Instead, AMPAS and ABC keep hoping they can make a few changes to the rules/ceremony and it'll get 40 million viewers again. Short of live sex on stage advertised in advance, that's not happening.

 

Edited February 9, 2022 by BoxOfficeFangrl

[BadOlCatSylvester]

Netflix has been doing well in nominations for the past couple of years, but they still haven't won Best Picture. I wonder how the Academy feels about them after the pandemic. With how dominant Power of the Dog has been, the odds might be in Netflix's favour.

[BestPicturePlutoNash]

6 minutes ago, BadOlCatSylvester said:

Netflix has been doing well in nominations for the past couple of years, but they still haven't won Best Picture. I wonder how the Academy feels about them after the pandemic. With how dominant Power of the Dog has been, the odds might be in Netflix's favour.

I think Netflix just lucked out. The last few years, BP winner came down to a really likable director who is esteemed (Bong, Guillero del Toro) or rising (Zhao, Jenkins). Farrelly with Green Book is exception but there was a narrative of the comedy guy making this huge crowdpleaser. Jane Campion is a beloved filmmaker making her first film in a decade. Look at the competition:

Belfast- Kenneth Branagh was nominated and has worked for decades but the film was snubbed in Editing and Cinematography meaning the industry believes the craftwork is weak

Dune- Denis Villeneuve was snubbed. Academy sci-fi bias?

King Richard- A director with even lower profile than Jenkins and Zhao

Licorice Pizza- PTA is a legend with the most nominations for living director without a win but too polarizing for consensus

West Side Story- Spielberg is a legend but rarely has rooting factor

 

That alone helps alleviate the fact Power of Dog isn't exactly a crowdpleaser or consensus film

 

[BoxOfficeFangrl]

This news certainly won't start a guessing game or hurt anyone's chances for a win...

 

 

 

Quote

The Hollywood Reporter has learned, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is planning not to mandate proof of vaccination (with or without a booster) in order to attend this year’s ceremony. Instead, it intends to require a negative PCR test or a negative rapid antigen test on the day of the event.

 

Quote

Some industry insiders have speculated that the Academy is being less stringent than it could be because more than a few high-profile industry figures — including at least one of last year’s acting winners and prominent members of the casts of multiple best picture nominees, as well as nominees in other categories — would otherwise be precluded from attending the Oscars.

 

It's technically under the new minimum guidelines from the LA Department of Health, but other precursors like SAG aren't dropping their vax requirements.

[filmlover]

3 hours ago, BoxOfficeFangrl said:

This news certainly won't start a guessing game or hurt anyone's chances for a win...

 

 

 

 

 

It's technically under the new minimum guidelines from the LA Department of Health, but other precursors like SAG aren't dropping their vax requirements.

Evangeline Lilly and Letitia Wright are overjoyed at the prospect that they might be invited to present at the Oscars right now.

[filmlover]

He says this now but wait until next year when he's in the conversation for the nomination for Spielberg's latest.

 

 

Seth Rogen: ‘Maybe People Just Don’t Care’ About the Oscars, and ‘Why Should They?’ https://t.co/OLl1tf1xpG

— Variety (@Variety) February 10, 2022

[BestPicturePlutoNash]

I kind of understand what he is saying. The excitement and desire for movies has certainly died out for many reasons and the abundance of awards shows and social media exposing celebrity has also taken the fun out of it

 

People always say "they just need to nominate popular movies"... but the Emmys annually nominate the biggest, most viral shows of the year and their ratings are worse. Grammys have underwhelming ratings.

[filmlover]

Honestly the problem with these awards shows isn't that they need to nominate more popular stuff but that they need to understand that a lot of people just don't have time or the patience for all the padding anymore. The audience willing to sit through 3 hours of overproduced musical numbers and comedy bits that fail to land that serve no purpose but to get the ceremony to end at the desired time is shrinking every year, and only comes across as an open invitation to criticize the ceremony for being behind the times (like when Billy Crystal ended up hosting following the whole Brett Ratner fallout a decade ago and proved to the world that the shtick he did during his previous hosting gigs was extremely dated). The sooner all these awards shows accept that streaming is their future, the better, but that's not happening as long as there are network contracts in place.

Edited February 10, 2022 by filmlover

[cookie]

I'm pretty sure the Oscars would have twice the views if they allowed it to be streamed on Youtube and other places instead of being trapped on ABC. The Game Awards this past December scored 85 million views by being available on basically every online platform, and it's stupid that the Oscars can't do the same because of existing contracts.

Edited February 11, 2022 by cookie

[Barnack]

I do not think that it is only high rating that made them able to sell to a network for $75 millions a year, the long runtime that permit the large amount of ads and the prestige that go get prestigious ads has well with audience that has money.

 

Getting a lot of kids watching a little bit just some moment while doing a lot of other stuff does not necessarily mean that much.

 

This makes ABC the largest U.S. broadcast television network by total number of affiliates. The network has an estimated national reach of 97.72% of all households in the United States (or 305,347,338 Americans with at least one television set).

 

According to Wikipedia, I do not suspect that there is that many potential buyers of the type of product being sold during the Oscar that do not have ABC and that they could boost revenue by leaving exclusivity in exchange for more eyeballs.

 

If the Oscar stop being overlong, dated, an event that make people sitdown for a rare time in the years for some (that ask themselve to I have TV ?) does it stop having prestige and turn into an Emmy, Grammy, etc... ?

 

If it stop having prestige, does it has any point and why would anyone watch ? There is a giant list of movie awards already that do all of that, being short and so on, people do not care much about them. The voting bodies is already quite diluted that said.

 

There is absolutely no easy long term solution imo, maybe the proposition would work but I am not sure how automatic they are.

[BoxOfficeFangrl]

It's so weird to me that even some people who follow the awards race all year seem not to care for the Oscars as an event. It's the Super Bowl of movie awards, yet they want it to be a glorified press conference, basically. Things were different back when the Oscars were the only game in town, but they can't pass a law preventing other groups from giving out awards, too. The world changes and you have to adapt - I just think AMPAS/ABC aren't going about it in the best way. Move up the start time, get a host who doesn't have contempt for the nominees, add the show to streaming ASAP, and premiere movie trailers during the commercial breaks.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 11, 2022 by BoxOfficeFangrl

[filmlover]

7 hours ago, BoxOfficeFangrl said:

It's so weird to me that even some people who follow the awards race all year seem not to care for the Oscars as an event. It's the Super Bowl of movie awards, yet they want it to be a glorified press conference, basically.

It's because the event has only become more and more of a chore to sit through each year tbh. The only recent ceremony that was breezy was the Green Book one three years back and that's because they were more or less obligated to throw in the towel after the Kevin Hart stuff.

[BoxOfficeFangrl]

2 hours ago, filmlover said:

It's because the event has only become more and more of a chore to sit through each year tbh. The only recent ceremony that was breezy was the Green Book one three years back and that's because they were more or less obligated to throw in the towel after the Kevin Hart stuff.

I guess it just depends on what a person's looking for... I love the fashion, the seating arrangements, the odd presenter combos, seeing if the audience likes the host or not (it affects the energy of the room), and hoping for upsets/ties. The musical performances might be beautiful or cringey, the actors from the movie might sing, they might not, they might put on an unexpected display of staggering sexual chemistry... The lulls make it a great show to watch in a group or while scrolling social media.

 

The Super Bowl lasts four hours and it draws tons of viewers who barely notice/care about the game itself. I suppose the game is less predictable than an awards show, yet when surprise winners happen at the Oscars, people complain about that, too (after previously complaining that the winners are so predictable). I guess with the Super Bowl, one difference is that people who genuinely don't care simply pay it little attention, instead of endlessly demanding the NFL fix the show to their liking. With movie award shows, it's a very different story.

 

Can the Oscars trim the random montages and aim for a show under three and a half hours? Sure, the Emmys manage it while awarding three times as many actors. But the Oscars are still an industry gala of people in formalwear with cameras in their faces, and it doesn't aspire to be a boozefest like the Golden Globes. Of course it's going to be a little staid.

 

 

 

Edited February 11, 2022 by BoxOfficeFangrl

[filmlover]

13 minutes ago, BoxOfficeFangrl said:

I guess it just depends on what a person's looking for... I love the fashion, the seating arrangements, the odd presenter combos, seeing if the audience likes the host or not (it affects the energy of the room), and hoping for upsets/ties. The musical performances might be beautiful or cringey, the actors from the movie might sing, they might not, they might put on an unexpected display of staggering sexual chemistry... The lulls make it a great show to watch in a group or while scrolling social media.

 

The Super Bowl lasts four hours and it draws tons of viewers who barely notice/care about the game itself. I suppose the game is less predictable than an awards show, yet when surprise winners happen at the Oscars, people complain about that, too (after previously complaining that the winners are so predictable). I guess with the Super Bowl, one difference is that people who genuinely don't care simply pay it little attention, instead of endlessly demanding the NFL fix the show to their liking. With movie award shows, it's a very different story.

 

Can the Oscars trim the random montages and aim for a show under three and a half hours? Sure, the Emmys manage it while awarding three times as many actors. But the Oscars are still an industry gala of people in formalwear with cameras in their faces, and it doesn't aspire to be a boozefest like the Golden Globes. Of course it's going to be a little staid.

 

 

 

I have no problem with the Song nominees being performed but all the other musical tributes add nothing but filling airtime and making an already long ceremony even longer. Every single time they start the show with a big splashy number ala Janelle Monae two years ago I'm left wondering "do they actually want the Rob Lowe/Snow White comparisons?"

Edited February 11, 2022 by filmlover

[filmlover]

Oscars: 2022 Ceremony to Feature a Multi-Emcee Palooza

The 94th Academy Awards will be a three-act show with a different host helming each hour, in a strategy to lure a broader audience and share the burden of guiding the telecast.

 

Oscars: 2022 Ceremony Will Have Multiple Hosts – The Hollywood Reporter