comment #1

Tom Reagan says ...

This is why I don't like going around saying what will and won't be nominated (aside from the ones I just said seemed likely) in September--because I WILL ALWAYS BE WRONG.

And I might probably be really wrong about the ones I just posted a minute ago.

comment #2

lbeale says ...

Jeff, foreign language films can be nominated for Best Picture, it's just that it rarely happens.
1970 - Z
1972 - The Emigrants
1973 - Cries and Whispers
Unless, of course, they changed the rules after this and I don't know what I'm talking about.

comment #3

Phatang! says ...

And what's wrong with being wrong, Sasha Stone? This isn't the H1N1 vaccine we're talking about. The whole point of the Oscars is this kind of speculation. A "good predictor who flies under the radar" is someone I have no interest in reading.

comment #4

Chase Kahn says ...

"Food, Inc. is a 'doc' and therefore has no chance to make the Best Pic cut. Um. Lebanon is a foreign language and therefore won't make the cut."

Everybody knows that "Lebanon" and "Food, Inc." have no chance to make the cut. Hell, "Lebanon" may not even be submitted for Best Foreign Language Film out of its own country for god's sake!

comment #5

Breedlove says ...

"I could go on...but do I really need to?"

Well, um, yeah, I guess you do, because your retort doesn't make a lot of sense. FOOD INC., LEBANON and SHERLOCK HOLMES all have zero chance of getting a Best Picture nom. Don't get the "Um" thing at all.

comment #6

errolmorrisfan says ...

Foreign films and Docs are indeed eligible for Best Picture.

Except for Jeff's assertion that Almodovar's 'Broken Embraces' is only getting a Foreign Film nod. It's actually not eligible because Spain didn't choose it as one of it's 3 finalists.

And Jeff, you really should know what 'Summer Hours' is. It's one of the best-reviewed films of the year, starred Juliette Binoche and did almost $2 million in the US.

comment #7

Vernon Hardapple says ...

Slow news day, huh? Do you guys have a secret pact to drum up these inter-blogger disputes to increase page views? You are all such cry babies.

Although I do enjoy the run up to the Oscar race, I do keep things in perspective. As should all of you.

Any serious cinephile worth their salt knows that any award given any movie has much more to do with politics than quality.

I think it's hilarious that all you so-called Oscar experts and prognosticators (of which Jeff does not claim to be a part of) are so very wrong so very often.

I have consistently beat every major Oscar blogger, year after year. And that includes you, Ms. Stone. So all this nattering from all you nabobs isn't worth a hill of beans. You are no more experts as predicting Oscar winners than anyone else. You have your blogs so you feel like that gives you some sort of legitimacy of prestige. It doesn't. Trust me.

I wonder if Sasha is now going to attempt to claim some higher authority like she tried to claim ownership of what constitutes a real critic early this week?

comment #8

Vernon Hardapple says ...

And yes, Errol is right, Jeff. You should really see Summer Hours. It's pretty damn exceptional.

I am really quite surprised it flew under your radar.

comment #9

Bilge says ...

Everyone knows that foreign language features DO qualify for Best Picture consideration. See also: LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL, IL POSTINO, CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON, etc. Granted, the film will probably have to be some kind of runaway hit to do so, but it's certainly not out of the question, especially if a film hasn't been released yet.

comment #10

Circumvrent says ...

SHERLOCK HOLMES and FOOD, INC. for best picture nominees? And this person writes about movies for a living?

comment #11

Phatang! says ...

OBVIOUSLY foreign films can be nominated. And obviously Jeff knows that, or there would've been absolutely no point in saying LEBANON won't be nominated because it's a foreign film! Yeesh.

SUMMER HOURS, by the way, is an exceptionally boring movie. Certainly well made, with some nice moments, but man, what a snoozer. And I generally love movies other people think are boring.

comment #12

BurmaShave says ...

I'm not even joking, weren't there SUMMER HOURS ads on this site

comment #13

arturobandini2 says ...

Phatang!, if Summer Hours left you with nothing to ruminate on about your own life or that of your parents, either you're under 25, incredibly shallow or have ADHD. There's a big difference between "boring" and "quiet."

comment #14

Phatang! says ...

Arturo, you and I can agree on Fante, but not on this movie. I didn't hate it, but no, it gave me nothing to ruminate on. In fact, that's exactly what I feel was missing--it didn't have any impact on me whatsoever. This is the kind of movie I usually really like, which is why I saw it, and why I was disappointed by it.

comment #15

Floyd Thursby says ...

I'm 63 and I love French films, have seen hundreds of them, but Phatang! (may I call you Pha?) is right. Summer Hours is a boring portrait of petty, self-involved bourgeoisie.

comment #16

maxfm says ...

BurmaShave, you are correct.

The first time Summer Hours even popped up on my radar was when I saw the ads on HE.

comment #17

actionman says ...

Good Bye Solo is one of the best movies of the year. It's a shame that it won't be nominated for anything.

comment #18

arturobandini2 says ...

tang!, sorry I got snippy. But Summer Hours was one of only 2 or 3 films this year that spoke to me like an adult, so I feel protective of it. And Floyd, I'm surprised that at 63, you only saw a portrait of petty douchebags. What I got out of it was a meditation on our (i.e. everyone's) mortality. We spend our lives collecting and saving sentimental shit that means the world to us. Where does all that stuff go when we die? We assume our kids will treasure it as much as we do -- because in previous generations, they did. But now, with globablization and disposable media, our kids would rather hock our prized possessions and take the cash. The movie is an unsentimental look at emotional climate change; the one character who comprehends what we're losing is forced to shrug his shoulders and deal with it. I found the movie quietly devastating.

comment #19

R Pena says ...

Damien Bona is not a "stats man." I don't anyone who puts more heart into this annual Oscar circus than he does.

comment #20

Floyd Thursby says ...

arturobandini2: Glad you liked SH. Perhaps I was in wrong mood.

comment #21

Ryan Adams says ...

Jeff, what kind of poll would it be to ask Americans who they'd like to have as our next president (after Obama, in 2016) and only give them the names of Republican politicians to choose from?

I build these polls for the enjoyment of our readers at AD, and I like to make the list of choices inclusive so that every reader can tick off his or her 10 personal favorites with complete freedom -- without having them feel like I'm corralling them down the chute to the slaughter house.

I can't post a poll and announce, "Hey kids, lookie here what I've got for you! You get to pick your 10 favorite movies from my own predetermined list of 16 titles!"

See, we like for our readers at AD to feel welcome and not insulted. We don't spend have the day posting things we know will deliberately aggravate and alienate our community of film lovers.

We have readers from all over the world, some of whom may be shy about their grammar or vocabulary, readers who don't comment but still like to participate in the Oscar game anonymously. Many of them will not get to see this year's eventual Oscar winners until the middle of next year, or even later, on DVD. They like to vote for movies they know about, whether that's District 9 or Up or Inglourious Basterds. It's got to be a good feeling for them to enjoy those movies in the theater and then see their current favorites validated for a short time on a poll.

Fess up, Jeff. I got under your skin about Funny People so you lashed out at me and Sasha. For those of your readers who might not have seen the poll I posted this morning, here's what I wrote. I compared the selections on today's ballot with those of a nearly identical poll we ran in June. I picked out the most undervalued movie (Up in the Air -- which ranked 32nd in June and today has shot up to 2nd place). And the most overrated, Funny People (15th place in June, sinking like a red meat turd to 44th place today). I jokingly chastised our readers for those two misconceptions. But Jeff's in no mood to joke when his own "expert" instincts get dissed, even though I never mentioned Wells by name.

So that's what this is really all about, guys. Anyone who's a regular reader here must surely have seen one of the 20 posts where Jeff was humping Judd Apatow as the next Billy Wilder (I wish I was making that up, but alas, it's what he said.)

So that's why I got slammed here this morning -- because Jeff felt compelled to point out that not every one of the 55 titles on our poll is a masterpiece. Does it not occur to Jeff that the polls are a subtle way to let out readers show off their savvy, giving them a chance to cull the chaff from this year's Oscar bait? To open the forum to readers' instincts and see where movies like The Bad Lieutenant land by the process of natural selection? (with a thump, at 46th out of 57.)

Way to make a slow news day feel even slower, Jeff.

comment #22

Seal pup says ...

Although I don't agree with her I really don't think calling someone's opinion 'absurd' can really be described as 'viciousness'. If it can I think it's fair to say Jeff is frequently guilty of perpetrating the written equivalent of mass murder.

comment #23

sashastone says ...

I'm only popping in to say that Wells is off base, way off base about Damien Bona and he hasn't been tracking Poland's predictions lately.

Where does "stats man" come from?

comment #24

Mr. F. says ...

This talk of foreign films being nominated for Best Picture has me wondering -- and I'm embarrassed I don't know the answer --

Say a foreign country puts up a movie as its nominee for Best Foreign Film. What if there's a more popular, successful, well-received choice from that country? Is THAT movie up for Best Picture?

For example, say a few years back that THE LIVES OF OTHERS wasn't picked as Germany's selection... but it was so popular, and so loved by the Academy, they wanted to honor it. Could they have just skipped B.F.F. and nominated it for Best Picture? Or can you ONLY be up for BP if you're one of the BFF selections?

comment #25

sashastone says ...

Mr. F., no. There are no rules about Best Picture except those that generally apply (they have to be released in a theater for a set time, etc.) to all films. The entire branch votes on the nominees for Best Pic, while only the foreign language decides the nominees in that category and the winner is determined only by those who see all five.

Btw, I only called Jeff's rundown of the poll "absurd" because he was acting as though foreign language films and docs can't be, not won't be, nominated for Best Pic when Bruce Davis himself was quoted in The Wrap recently saying maybe a foreign language film, maybe a doc, etc.

Finally, as one of our readers pointed out, how can a reader's poll be "wrong"? It's not a Gurus of Gold chart of most-likely nominees - it's a subjective thing.

comment #26

EdHavens says ...

Remember last March, when I broke the story that Gran Torino was not the next Dirty Harry movie but a drama about a racist bonding with his immigrant Hmong neighbor, and everyone and their mother immediately put it at their top of the list for Best Picture contenders?

Any Oscar talk before December 1st is, frankly, ludicrous. You want to rank which films people are most looking forward to in the next three months, knock yourself out.

And this is not a knock against Awards Daily, nor anyone else. I am a part of the school that thinks too much awards talk too early in the year can sink some challengers that peak too early. Like Hurt Locker. If the Oscars were still five nominees for Best Picture, I could almost guarantee it not being nominated. With ten, it might squeak in, in the number nine or ten slot. But not with only five.

Conversely, Juno, as best as I can recall, came out of Toronto with good buzz but not a whole hell of a lot of Best Picture buzz. It wasn't forced down everyone's throat until closer towards the end of the year, when audiences started getting the chance to see it for themselves and heat it up. Not that I thought Juno was worth anything, but its buzz was allowed to grow naturally, not in this vacuum we call Oscar Prognostication.

comment #27

sashastone says ...

Actually, Ed, that isn't really true; Juno was in the Oscar hunt straight out of Sundance in a big, big way.

comment #28

Ryan Adams says ...

"You want to rank which films people are most looking forward to in the next three months, knock yourself out."

You're right, EdHavens. That's why I try to phrase the terms of our polls early in the year as "Most Anticipated" or "Hopefuls."

After Toronto, though, all the cards that we can expect to be dealt are face-up on the table, with enough valid reaction from critics that we begin to talk about genuine "contenders."

I'm guilty of starting these polls at AD 3 years ago as an experiment in measuring zeitgeist, more than anything else.

And you know what? Last year we ran a very early poll, the week after No Country for Old Men won. Among our readers' most 8 most anticipated films for 2008 were Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, and The Reader. We were running location snapshots of The Reader and having discussions about the novel the first week of March.

Admittedly, nobody saw Slumdog Millionaire coming, and we we way off in our early "anticipation" of The Dark Knight, Australia and Revolutionary Road. (all honorable films, Oscar snubs notwithstanding.)

Are polls in October inconclusive? Sure. But so are polls taken the week after nominations are announced.

Here's the thing: A few people guessing blindly on our poll today are going to get every single nominee correct. I hope he or she registers their selections in the comments, so they'll be beaten to a pulp with all the back-patting they'll enjoy in January.

For me, that will make all the carping and sniping we're enduring worth it.

comment #29

EdHavens says ...

Except it wasn't even in production when Sundance happened that year. It premiered at Telluride on September 1, before playing to a standing ovation at Toronto one week later. And if you look at Roger Ebert's first comments about the film from Toronto on September 9, you'll see in the first paragraph he predicts it will be quickly beloved when it opens (which it did) and that Ellen Page would be nominated (which she was). But no other predictions about Picture or Director or even the screenplay, which he does heap praise upon. Writers from EW and Variety also praised Page, Cody and Jason Reitman out of Telluride and Toronto, but there were very few people willing to go out on a limb that early with major awards predictions. Anne Thompson was pointing out, in early December 2007 just before the film opened, some Oscar prognosticators were suggesting the film would not play well enough with older Oscar voters to get many nomination.

comment #30

Phatang! says ...

Arturo--you make a good case for the movie. All those things are there. But it was so cold, and diluted by too many characters. It really went down the wrong road, I thought, with the painter--I would've liked it much more if it had just stayed focused on the actual house, which I thought was the most essential element, and the easiest to connect to. But you're right, I was probably too dismissive of it initially, as at least it's a movie you can have a conversation about.

comment #31

EdHavens says ...

"Are polls in October inconclusive? Sure. But so are polls taken the week after nominations are announced."

Thank you for making my point, Ryan.

"After Toronto, though, all the cards that we can expect to be dealt are face-up on the table, with enough valid reaction from critics that we begin to talk about genuine 'contenders.'"

I wasn't aware Avatar played at Toronto. Or Invictus. Or The Lovely Bones. Nor was I aware Get Low had a release date already set. Or that Ondine even had an American distributor.

This is my problem with these polls. All the cards that we can expect to be dealt face-up are not on the table yet. Like with Slumdog last year, Letters from Iwo Jima two years ago or Million Dollar Baby four years ago, the table didn't get set until much later in the process. At least wait until early November, when last minute release date changes are no longer likely to happen, before polling for contenders.

comment #32

Ryan Adams says ...

"Thank you for making my point, Ryan."

That's your point? That anything anybody writes or assumes about a future event is inconclusive?

You're a regular Ludwig Wittgenstein, Ed. Does this mean we get to share the Nobel Prize in Physics for our studies in the cosmological uni-directional arrow of space and time?

Please try to relax about this poll, if you possibly can. I assure you it's not intended to disrupt the motion picture industry. You don't like the idea of a poll in September? Allow me to guide you out of this poll problem: Don't like the poll? Then don't take it, Don't read it.

Your "problem with these polls"? geez, what's it like to not have any real problems that demand your constant attention all day?

For us at Awards Daily, we don't take everything as an affront to our sense of huffiness. For us, as much fun as it might be to score a direct hit on a few titles months in advance, it's equally entertaining and instructive to keep track of how we can be misled and to ask in amusement, "What were we thinking?!"

Do you seriously see no reason to expect Invictus, Avatar or The Lovely Bones to be worth expending any precious powers of speculation? Then by all means, please refrain and conserve all your energy for jumping all over people who have a different attitude.

See, a lot of our readers still have a fresh sense of hope and optimism, and enjoy looking forward to movies we know next to nothing about. Maybe that's because they hang out a site where there's not an oppressive blight of discouragement hanging over their heads, and not so much pseudo-patrician monocle-polishing going on every day.

comment #33

plastiqueelephant says ...

I pretty much reading detest the sites which track the inside baseball of what will win instead of what should win (unless it's a blue ribbon year like a couple of years ago with TWBB, Diving Bell and NCOM). Who cares unless you/a friend are nominated? The arguments as to who should win, on the other hand, go to the very heart of loving films.

comment #34

Ryan Adams says ...

Sasha misspoke about Sundance. Obviously she means TIFF. We all know Juno first splashed down in Toronto.

And all Sasha says is that Juno "was in the Oscar hunt" -- no mention of any categories, Ed, so stop trying to play "Gotcha!"

comment #35

plastiqueelephant says ...

I actually just read the linked article and count me doubly repulsed: "If your heart gets involved, you may get it wrong on occasion." What, is the whole point of sites like this to maximize your chances of winning your office Oscar pool? Perhaps, if the Academy concerned itself less with "what film has momentum" or how each film did at the Globes (even though the voting body is accepted to be utterly questionable) or anything other than how the voters responded to the films the awards given out would actually age well so that one, two, five or ten years later they don't look like Traffic level debacles. Obviously, that's a bit idealistic but sites like this serve as cigarettes to the cancer.

comment #36

Postavant says ...

Loving the shit out of Funny People aside, that was one beautiful response Ryan. Bravo.

comment #37

EdHavens says ...

Thank you for the compliment, Ryan. Too bad Derek Jarman is dead. I think I would have enjoyed his retelling of my life.

But if you will kindly notice only one of us is calling the other names and getting huffy, while one of us remains calm and rational.

I do not expect Awards Daily to all of a sudden change how they do things, nor have I ever asked that. I am simply pointing out the futility of such activities when we are still so very early in the awards race. I know why it's done. Polls like these drive traffic to the site, which in turn increases ad revenue and pays for your team to continue these endeavors. And I do hope you guys continue those endeavors. Of all the sites who do what you do, I feel AD does it best. I simply hope, in the coming years, your team will just rethink the wording of these polls until, as you put it, all the cards that we can expect to be dealt are face-up on the table. For 2009, they aren't yet.

comment #38

sashastone says ...

Ed, that's really strange but of course it must be true -- but I swear I remember them talking about Juno as early as Sundance. I just tried to google it but couldn't find any info. I thought Slumdog did the Telluride/Toronto two-step, but not Juno. Maybe I was getting stuff sent to me about it -- I'll have to figure out why I got so confused. Anyway, thanks for the correction.

comment #39

Ryan Adams says ...

As curator of the Awards Daily archives, I'm able to check the vault (which resembles the Walter Parks Thatcher Library).

Sasha first mentioned Juno on Sept 11, referring to Ebert's story about the standing ovation at TIFF.

3 days later, in an article called "Taking Toronto's Temp," Sasha said: "Nonetheless, the one that seems to have consensus around it, and looks to be along the lined of Sideways (maybe, we'll see), is Juno."

So although there was no over talk of "Juno is a lock for BP!" comparing it a Best Nominee like Sideways is about the highest praise a little movie could wish for, the week of its premiere.

Ed, you seem to be a genuine gentleman, and I appreciate your chill demeanor when I heated up. By the way, the "pseudo-patrician" remark was not directed at you, so the only name I called you was Ludwig Wittgenstein. ;-)

comment #40

Ryan Adams says ...

yikes, typos. Should read:
"along the lines of Sideways" &
"no overt talk of 'Juno is a lock.."

Some of the more advanced movie blogs have an edit function allowing readers to fix things like that.

comment #41

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