Oscars 2017 thread

[Bobular]

So often the winners of best picture are movies I've never heard of and no one I've spoke to has ever heard of or if I have it's because the media have been talking about how this movie I've never heard of is going to win all the Oscars.

And it's things like that that make the ordinary people so disinterested in these awards.

Couldn't be argued that movies like moonlight or la la land has such specific audiences that mass marketing doesn't really work for them and so it would be better to appeal to the select audience?

But if they are only interesting to a small audience, how can they be said to be the best film? To me the best film should be the one that was enjoyed by the most people as that is the main point of a movie, to be enjoyed.

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

So often the winners of best picture are movies I've never heard of and no one I've spoke to has ever heard of or if I have it's because the media have been talking about how this movie I've never heard of is going to win all the Oscars.

And it's things like that that make the ordinary people so disinterested in these awards.

Couldn't be argued that movies like moonlight or la la land has such specific audiences that mass marketing doesn't really work for them and so it would be better to appeal to the select audience?

But if they are only interesting to a small audience, how can they be said to be the best film? To me the best film should be the one that was enjoyed by the most people as that is the main point of a movie, to be enjoyed.

I would argue that that only works if you reduce the purpose of media to only entertainment. In terms of media with different purposes, I would argue that the best film is one with both the best technical and craft elements (editing, cinematography, production design) and the best narrative work (screenplay and acting). This is independent of mass appeal or enjoyability in my mind

 

[Bobular]

So often the winners of best picture are movies I've never heard of and no one I've spoke to has ever heard of or if I have it's because the media have been talking about how this movie I've never heard of is going to win all the Oscars.

And it's things like that that make the ordinary people so disinterested in these awards.

Couldn't be argued that movies like moonlight or la la land has such specific audiences that mass marketing doesn't really work for them and so it would be better to appeal to the select audience?

But if they are only interesting to a small audience, how can they be said to be the best film? To me the best film should be the one that was enjoyed by the most people as that is the main point of a movie, to be enjoyed.

I would argue that that only works if you reduce the purpose of media to only entertainment. In terms of media with different purposes, I would argue that the best film is one with both the best technical and craft elements (editing, cinematography, production design) and the best narrative work (screenplay and acting). This is independent of mass appeal or enjoyability in my mind

The technical parts of making the movie have there own awards, if you're saying the best film will be the one with the best with the best technical and craft elements then surly the best film will be the one that won the most of the other awards.

 

[Mangod]

So often the winners of best picture are movies I've never heard of and no one I've spoke to has ever heard of or if I have it's because the media have been talking about how this movie I've never heard of is going to win all the Oscars.

And it's things like that that make the ordinary people so disinterested in these awards.

Couldn't be argued that movies like moonlight or la la land has such specific audiences that mass marketing doesn't really work for them and so it would be better to appeal to the select audience?

But if they are only interesting to a small audience, how can they be said to be the best film? To me the best film should be the one that was enjoyed by the most people as that is the main point of a movie, to be enjoyed.

A movies target demographic does net equate to its quality. Otherwise, you could argue that Iron Man 2 is a better movie than Citizen Kane just because it had a larger audience (just as an example).

I would argue, however, that a Movie should not be up for nomination when Joe Average and Jane Plain haven't even been able to see it - if the Oscar's are meant to be a celebration of movies, the qualifiers for being nomineed should be more stringent than being "publicly screened for paid admission in Los Angeles County (with the name of a particular theater where it screened included); and must screen for a qualifying run of at least seven straight days."

Because being released in a single theater one week before the Oscars to use the nomination as a part of marketing? Yeah, that's what's rendered the VGA's less relevant than the Arbitrary Awards.

 

[hermes]

I'm glad La La land didn't win. A more white picture couldn't have been made. all technicolorful, cheery, and 1950s flavor, like it was made from a collective to be an oscar contender.

I struggle to think of any other movie that's as obviously Oscar Bait as La La Land. I suppose there's nothing really wrong with that, but it will invariably be a divisive movie since a lot of people will be ticked off by some of the more obviously baity choices made in production.

From what I hear, Moonlight is pretty damn Oscar-baity too.

Oscar Bait movies are still better movies than most movies churrened out by the Blockbuster scene.

Appearently being the best possible is considered bad

Oscar bait isn't synonymous with good, it means it ticks most or all of the check boxes on the list of things the academy likes. Moviebob defines it pretty well in his The King's Speech review.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epsa4gQr3uc

Does not change the fact that the Academy has better taste in movies. And the King Speech was a good movie. Bob was probably just salty that it won over Toy Story 3. I mean this is the man that thinks Harry Potter and the Avengers should be nominated for Best Picture

I liked what Cracked suggested the Oscars do, and have a three year or so gap between when the movie comes out and when it comes up for an Oscar nomination. That way, the awards won't keep going to the decent-yet-forgettable-oscarbait and will go to the good movies that have stayed in the minds of the voters. Doing it that way, things like Harry Potter or Mad Max would actually win.

Why do you find most Oscarbait forgettable?

I did not find There Will Be Blood forgettable. I did not find Slumdog Millionaire forgettable.

Also just because a perticular movie won does not invalidate the quality of the other nominated movies.

There Will Be Blood and Slumdog Millionaire were not Oscarbait.

Oscarbait refers to movies that are hand made to get nominations. They are often period pieces and made to inspire nostalgia among voters, or just affirmation of how important the media is to changing the world. They are also premiered late in the year, because nominators have the attention span of a goldfish. Examples of oscarbait are "The Artist", a movie about movie nostalgia for people 70 and older; or "The King Speech" a movie that was premiered exclusively to Oscar voters and was about how monarchy teamed up with radio and sound movies to helped save the world from Nazis; or "Argo", a movie about how Hollywood was able to save hostages from a war zone.

That is not to say some of those movies aren't fine on their own right, but many are so forgettable that people barely remember them a couple years after the nomination.

And no, it does not invalidate the quality of the other movies, but it does cast shadow on the validity of the decision. After all, it is the same process that said Dance with the Wolves was better than Goodfellas, Forest Gump was better than The Shawshank Redemption, Shakespeare in Love was better than Private Ryan, Crash was better than Brokeback Mountain and Chicago was better than Lord of the Rings and The Pianist.

Personally, Dances with Wolves and Goodfellas are equal in quality and I say this as a big Scorsese fan.

Same with Shawshank, Forrest Gump, and Pulp Fiction, I mean come on how can Forrest Gump be forgettable and just made for the Oscars?! If anything Shawshank had more forgettable moments. But thats me.

Yes Yes we all know about Private Ryan vs Shakespeare in Love but there are factors:

1. There were backroom deals that made Shakespeare in Love won.

2. Mostly because well there has been epic War movies that won before and more deeper and personal than Saving Private Ryan. I mean Lawrance of Arabia and Deer Hunter and others.
...

And right on the first point, you said yourself the reason why the Oscars are not reliable as a measure of quality (unless you honestly think "Shakespeare in Love" is the only example of backroom deals in the history of the awards, which is not).

Personally, I have always taken the nominations as an interesting list of recommendations for movies of that year that I might have missed, which with the advent of celebrity critics on youtube and their inexorable "top 10 of the year" lists, it has become unnecessary; but I couldn't care less about who won, because I have learned to distrust the opinions of anonymous people, especially when their are lots of economic values riding on those opinions, and the people whose money depend on it do know who votes; and when a lot of those opinions are colored by old man nostalgia and smugness, so that I respect a lot more the opinion of someone that tells me The Mask is one of their favorites movies instead of Cleopatra, only because one of them is "the proper answer".

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

I'm glad La La land didn't win. A more white picture couldn't have been made. all technicolorful, cheery, and 1950s flavor, like it was made from a collective to be an oscar contender.

I struggle to think of any other movie that's as obviously Oscar Bait as La La Land. I suppose there's nothing really wrong with that, but it will invariably be a divisive movie since a lot of people will be ticked off by some of the more obviously baity choices made in production.

From what I hear, Moonlight is pretty damn Oscar-baity too.

Oscar Bait movies are still better movies than most movies churrened out by the Blockbuster scene.

Appearently being the best possible is considered bad

Oscar bait isn't synonymous with good, it means it ticks most or all of the check boxes on the list of things the academy likes. Moviebob defines it pretty well in his The King's Speech review.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epsa4gQr3uc

Does not change the fact that the Academy has better taste in movies. And the King Speech was a good movie. Bob was probably just salty that it won over Toy Story 3. I mean this is the man that thinks Harry Potter and the Avengers should be nominated for Best Picture

I liked what Cracked suggested the Oscars do, and have a three year or so gap between when the movie comes out and when it comes up for an Oscar nomination. That way, the awards won't keep going to the decent-yet-forgettable-oscarbait and will go to the good movies that have stayed in the minds of the voters. Doing it that way, things like Harry Potter or Mad Max would actually win.

Why do you find most Oscarbait forgettable?

I did not find There Will Be Blood forgettable. I did not find Slumdog Millionaire forgettable.

Also just because a perticular movie won does not invalidate the quality of the other nominated movies.

There Will Be Blood and Slumdog Millionaire were not Oscarbait.

Oscarbait refers to movies that are hand made to get nominations. They are often period pieces and made to inspire nostalgia among voters, or just affirmation of how important the media is to changing the world. They are also premiered late in the year, because nominators have the attention span of a goldfish. Examples of oscarbait are "The Artist", a movie about movie nostalgia for people 70 and older; or "The King Speech" a movie that was premiered exclusively to Oscar voters and was about how monarchy teamed up with radio and sound movies to helped save the world from Nazis; or "Argo", a movie about how Hollywood was able to save hostages from a war zone.

That is not to say some of those movies aren't fine on their own right, but many are so forgettable that people barely remember them a couple years after the nomination.

And no, it does not invalidate the quality of the other movies, but it does cast shadow on the validity of the decision. After all, it is the same process that said Dance with the Wolves was better than Goodfellas, Forest Gump was better than The Shawshank Redemption, Shakespeare in Love was better than Private Ryan, Crash was better than Brokeback Mountain and Chicago was better than Lord of the Rings and The Pianist.

Personally, Dances with Wolves and Goodfellas are equal in quality and I say this as a big Scorsese fan.

Same with Shawshank, Forrest Gump, and Pulp Fiction, I mean come on how can Forrest Gump be forgettable and just made for the Oscars?! If anything Shawshank had more forgettable moments. But thats me.

Yes Yes we all know about Private Ryan vs Shakespeare in Love but there are factors:

1. There were backroom deals that made Shakespeare in Love won.

2. Mostly because well there has been epic War movies that won before and more deeper and personal than Saving Private Ryan. I mean Lawrance of Arabia and Deer Hunter and others.
...

And right on the first point, you said yourself the reason why the Oscars are not reliable as a measure of quality (unless you honestly think "Shakespeare in Love" is the only example of backroom deals in the history of the awards, which is not).

Personally, I have always taken the nominations as an interesting list of recommendations for movies of that year that I might have missed, which with the advent of celebrity critics on youtube and their inexorable "top 10 of the year" lists, it has become unnecessary; but I couldn't care less about who won, because I have learned to distrust the opinions of anonymous people, especially when their are lots of economic values riding on those opinions, and the people whose money depend on it do know who votes; and when a lot of those opinions are colored by old man nostalgia and smugness, so that I respect a lot more the opinion of someone that tells me The Mask is one of their favorites movies instead of Cleopatra, only because one of them is "the proper answer".

I would not completely discount the second reason because really how different is Saving Private Ryan compared to anyother Epic War movie that came before.

I mean Platoon was just as brutal and violent in its depiction of Battles just as much as Saving Private Ryan.

And movies like Apocalypse Now and others explored the dark themes of War.

And effects wise well Lawrance of Arabia is still a sight to behold:



And Waterloo:

 

[Remus]

From what I hear, Moonlight is pretty damn Oscar-baity too.

Moonlight, which actually won.

Wait.. what..

Is Oscar Bait one of those terms which has lost all meaning now, so we just throw it out to describe any movie which doesn't have explosions in it or is vaguely character and/or performance driven..

The academy does not have a terribly long history of picking movies about closeted black men. If you want to win an Oscar, statistically you really, really shouldn't make a movie about that. You should make a fluffy inspirational film about middle aged white people (preferably men) getting over disability or mental health issues, or white people single handedly solving racism, or if you absolutely must do something substantial make sure the source of the emotional trauma is something in the past which primarily affected white people, like world war 1 or the holocaust.

I think you'd be hard pressed to find many people who thought Moonlight would win. It was critically acclaimed, but that doesn't mean anything with the academy. It won, essentially, because the dynamics of the academy have actually changed a lot in the past few years, and to be honest that's a good thing.

Holy misquotes batman! I had nothing against Moonlight winning. Should read:

Moonlight, which actually won.

I was just happy that La La Land didn't win because I felt it was pandering hard to the target voter demographic. Films are made just to win awards you know. They might look like they have something meaningful to say but in reality, they are a specific type of film released at a specific time as to garner the most votes by being fresh in the voters' minds. This was not necessarily true of Moonlight but matches La La Land to a T.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

From what I hear, Moonlight is pretty damn Oscar-baity too.

Moonlight, which actually won.

Wait.. what..

Is Oscar Bait one of those terms which has lost all meaning now, so we just throw it out to describe any movie which doesn't have explosions in it or is vaguely character and/or performance driven..

Now mate this thing where I'm an asshole who doesn't get off with a movie unless something goes boom is rude and presumptuous and you can stop it right there. I saw La La Land at the 73rd Venice Film Festival and liked it, and I saw Moonlight at the 30th Mar del Plata Film Festival and I liked it as well. As for the meaning of Oscar Bait, as far as I'm concerned it's whatever appeals to the social conscience of the USA at the time of its release.

Here's a term that has "lost all meaning": character driven. As if La La Land's plot or indeed every other movie's in that category wasn't driven by character motivation. Which is what "character driven" means, not "It's not Transformers".

I think you'd be hard pressed to find many people who thought Moonlight would win.

Maybe it's a cultural thing. I work among dozens of critics and most of them would call it Oscar bait.

It was critically acclaimed, but that doesn't mean anything with the academy. It won, essentially, because the dynamics of the academy have actually changed a lot in the past few years, and to be honest that's a good thing.

I know why it won, but I'm not dooming this thread to R&P.

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

Throwing in my two cents, but I got the same vibe from the hype around La La Land that I got after watching The Artist: A movie made by Hollywood thats tells Hollywood how great Hollywood is. Which means it gets a hard pass from me.
Though for what its worth I'm not interested in Moonlight either, though thats because I just don't like biopics in general. Its the way they always try to contort real life events and people into fitting the standard pacing and characters of a film

 

[McElroy]

I know why it won, but I'm not dooming this thread to R&P.

:^)

-- this year's nominations were definitely skewed to make the ceremony not #sowhite.

 

[Wolf Hagen]

I started to feel years ago that the Oscars where becoming A:
A: Political circlejerk for some movie companies.
B: Politicized beyond what anyone could have seen 10 years ago.
C: Less about the Art of Movie or good Stories, but whatever fits the Zeitgeist (wich in this decade is defenatly screwed by this point).
D: By now an expensive joke that by this point cement, that all Film Festivals are just waste of money, lifetime and energy.

This Year turned it from a feeling into a harsh opinion.

 

[Lightspeaker]

All I will say about the Oscars is that its an absolute bloody travesty that Kimi no Na wa didn't even get nominated. And its a further travesty that Zootopia/Zootropolis won the category given that, despite the fact I really enjoyed the movie, it is (at best) the third best film in that particular lineup if I think critically about it all.

I see the "my kids liked it and I found it okay so I'll vote for that" rule is heavily out in force this year for the best animated feature award. Would be nice if they'd actually take the category seriously.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Holy misquotes batman!

Indeed, that was a misquote. Sorry.

As for the meaning of Oscar Bait, as far as I'm concerned it's whatever appeals to the social conscience of the USA at the time of its release.

Irrelevant. What appeals to the social conscience of the USA at the time is absolutely meaningless as to whether something wins an Oscar. That's kind of the point and why we have the term "Oscar Bait", because the Oscars are driven by the priorities of the academy which has always been a very specific group of people with particular tastes and interests which overwhelmingly do not reflect the priorities of the public at large or even the critical circuit. In fact, one could easily say that the academy specifically tends to favour films which don't have any social conscience. The best way to win an Oscar has always been to make a character-driven melodrama (I'll get to this in a second) starring famous actors but with absolutely nothing to say except things everyone already knows (like "the holocaust was bad" or "bereavement is really hard") and thus no risk of being controversial.

To a certain extent the idea of a film being either character driven or plot driven is a bit contrived, most films will have elements of both, but that doesn't mean the classification is meaningless.

In a plot driven film, the emphasis is on events which occur outside the characters. There are characters and they may react and have feelings in response to what is going on around them, but these feelings are not the story. They are not driving forward the narrative, but instead reacting to external forces which are the narrative. The story usually ends with something outside of the characters being resolved, rather than with the characters coming to some emotional realisation.

In a character driven film, the characters and their emotions are the story. The things which happen around them emerge organically from their inner conflicts and feelings. The enjoyment for the audience in these films is not being taken on a fun ride through a series of interesting events, but rather figuring out the puzzle of the characters themselves and coming to understand and even identify with their interior emotions and experiences. It may well end with the characters in exactly the same situation they began in, but their emotional perspective has changed and (if the story works) this constitutes a satisfying resolution.

The reason the academy prefers character-driven films is actually pretty obvious, they tend to make more demands on the actors, because the actors are responsible for conveying the emotions which are the source of the story and thus the film is dependent on them. Since the academy has always been very actor-centric, this appeals to its inbuilt conceits. However, it's also a trend which is very easily exploited by gurning melodramas with nothing to say and little reason to exist, hence the term "Oscar Bait".

 

[kellyon]

All I will say about the Oscars is that its an absolute bloody travesty that Kimi no Na wa didn't even get nominated. And its a further travesty that Zootopia/Zootropolis won the category given that, despite the fact I really enjoyed the movie, it is (at best) the third best film in that particular lineup if I think critically about it all.

completely agree!