Oscar Poker #18
A few hours ago Sasha Stone, Scott Feinberg and I recorded a special Oscar Poker (#18) about this morning’s Oscar nominations. I’d been in a funk all day about the 12 nominations handed to Tom Hooper‘s The King’s Speech, and the meaning of that number. Our discussion was basically about raising the spirits of those who, like myself, felt grief-struck about the “wrong” film suddenly seeming to become (emphasis on the “s” word) the leading Best Picture contender.
To me (and to most of the world) the 12 TKS nominations indicated a return to the old Oscar mentality of the ’90s, to notions of Anglo-Saxon safety and familiarity and upscale formula, to Merchant-Ivory/Masterpiece Theatre brand of royal British cinema. I felt deeply bummed by this because, to me, The Social Network almost represented a kind of Prague Spring movie — youthful, buzzy, fresh, GenY, 21st Century, etc. So to me this morning’s King’s Speech power-surge felt like repression, like Soviet tanks rumbling into Prague in August ’68. I stood on the street and wept.
But you know what? Our conversation raised my spirits somewhat. Here’s a stand-alone link,
yes, a British period piece getting more nominations than a computer nerd movie is *EXACTLY* like the crushing of a student uprising by a totalitarian dictatorship.
but i remember having the same feelings when i was seven years old and just *knew* that Star Wars HAD to win Best Picture because it was the future of movies and revolutionary and cool and lightsabers were totally kick ass.
today, i’d be embarrassed as hell if the Academy had given the Oscar to anything but Annie Hall that year.
As has been mentioned elsewhere, KS got technical nods that NETWORK was not in the running for. Take away stuff like Costume Design & Art Direction and the disparity really isn’t so great.
also it’s a really well made movie that everyone likes, and it’s making huge bank. As with THE QUEEN, it’s better than it needs to be. Relax.
The laziest way to criticize something British is to compare it to Masterpiece Theatre. Only it doesn’t always work since TKS is actually more entertaining and engaging than Masterpiece Theatre.
And a lot what is shown on Masterpiece is fantastic. Recent examples include Bleak House with Charles Dance and Carey Mulligan, the modern Sherlock and, now, Downton Abbey.
Goodness Wells! You spend so much of your time reporting every fart of the award season, yet you are to dumb to realize that it was INEVITABLE that TKS would get more nominations than TSN? What did you expect? A Costume nomination for TSN? Nominations for both Garfield and Timberlake? The main reason why TSN is not the clear frontrunner anymore is becuase people like yourself completly misrepresent the meaning of the nominations…
Let’s especially remember that Harvey Weinstein is the widely-acknowledged master of milking nominations.
Kit Sung has a good point… take out the categories The Social Network was never a factor in(costumes, art direction, supporting actress) and they’re at the same number of nominations.
Agreed. This is a conversation to have after King’s Speech wins the award, maybe, but not now.
King’s Speech led the Globe nominations, too, and walked away with one award. PGA adds some excitement and it’s not over, sure, but this seems to be jumping the gun.
I’d rather hear about Hobo With a Shotgun.
As ModernLifeIsRubbish suggests, have those who whine about Masterpiece (its current name) seen it in recent years? About half of what’s been on in this century has been excellent.
Wells to KitSung, Pastepotpete: I’m fully aware that The Social Network couldn’t hope to compete in certain below-the-line realms (including Best Supporting Actress, production design, etc.) that The King’s Speech, being a British period piece about the royals, would probably be recognized for. So yes, I get it. Take away those smaller categories and the nomination tallies for the two films are roughly even. What I also know (and what you know besides, although you’re not admitting it) is that the mice scurried and the world tumbled yesterday morning when people considered the difference between 12 nominations for TKS and 8 nominations for TSN. Nobody thought it through as we have here.. They just fled like fools over to TKS. The TSN-favoring Gurus of Gold roster, made up of pros who are supposed to have a veneer of sophistication about this game, took one look and tumbled for TKS, to a man. Not one of them held their ground. And that‘s what I was responding to, why I felt so gloomy. One minute I was savoring a clear blue sky and a morning cappucino with my lovely blonde Czech girlfriend in an outdoor cafe in Wenceslas Square, and the next minute….Soviet tanks!
I’m not sure I completely understand the rationale of using Gladiator to bolster the argument against The King’s Speech winning or saying that if you’re predicting The King’s Speech you also have to predict Tom Hooper.
Of the 24 films who scored 12 or more nominations, 15 won best picture (as it’s always been, historically speaking the most nominated has a better chance of winning).
Of those 15 Best Picture winners, 12 also won Best Director. Shakespeare in Love (98), Gladiator (00), and Chicago (02) all lost Best Director. Those 3 are fairly recent films, 2 of which were Weinstein productions.
Prognosticators should be pointing to Shakespeare in Love not Gladiator, when discussing historical precedence. Especially if The King’s Speech goes on to win the SAG and lose the DGA as many are predicting (WGA is irrelevant as The King’s Speech was ineligible).
Caving to something like that is lame, for sure, but aren’t they just shooting for the short term, here? Not trying to figure out what the best film of the year is, but rather what is going to win a particular award? It’s not criticism, it’s punditry.
A lot of people would rather be correct than right.
Except that TSN isn’t being recognized by young people as anything “buzzy” or “Gen-Y” or anything else other than a mildly interesting film about the assholes who created the site on which they knowingly waste a lot of their time. It’s “Pirates of Silicon Valley” with better talent across the board and, when you get down to it, a less relevant story.
I liked it. I’ll be happy if it wins best picture. But it’s not one of the great American films and I’d be somewhat happy to see any of the ten nominated pics win. Fincher deserves Best Director hands down, though.
Bluetide, you can’t speak for a whole generation. Maybe James Franco but not a whole generation. And no one said it was any of that. What it is is a great American film. Yes, it is. And I’ll take the word of hundreds on record than ever will some anonymous commenter on a blog (even though I am one).
Bluetide can’t speak for a whole generation, but apparently pantingkitty can!
Also: James Franco is technically a member of Gen X, so I’m not even sure why you brought up his name.
“as it’s always been, historically speaking the most nominated has a better chance of winning”
It’s a slight statistical advantage that gets played up a lot. The most immediate counter-example is ‘Dreamgirls’, which had the most nominations that year and wasn’t nominated for Best Picture.
However, much more common is that the movie with the most Oscar wins wins Best Picture, so you start to look at the possibilities for how ‘Social Network’ can earn the most and how ‘King’s Speech’ can earn the most.
‘Social Network’ is basically a lock in director, screenplay, and score. It has a shot at other awards as well, probably editing is the most likely, although that category often goes in its own direction.
‘King’s Speech’ is a lock for actor and…. that’s it. Costume is likely, I guess. Screenplay it’s probably a favorite, but it has some competition. So it has to exhaust a lot of push just to wind up where Social Network is already.
But, if anything steals any smaller technical awards from Inception and True Grit, is it going to be the little British movie made by lottery money, or the one by technically-perfect-Fincher?
It’s actually not true about the movie with the most noms winning. The director winning is a much more reliable indicator, stats wise.
I can’t speak for a whole generation, but I am the exact same name as Mark Zuckerberg, I consider myself pretty plugged into twentysomething film culture, and I have a pretty high opinion of myself. And there is zero excitement over the Social Network. First scene with Mara – people thought was funny. Facemash scene – pretty damn intriguing. But the rest of it is pat as hell… elevated by David Fincher’s direction, Sorkin’s script, and the cast (along with Reznor’s incredible score). It’s a testament to the ability of talent to turn even the flimsiest story into something watchable.
TSN is a fine American film. I’ll even go so far as to say it’s a greatly done film. But it’s not a great film because it has neither a great story nor a great character. It’s not that it’s cold – it’s that the characters are neither empathetic enough to give a rooting interest nor terrible enough to be compelling. They’re just normal selfish rich people – that’s boring. Thank God for the talent involved.
bluetide, you’re saying that it’s bad except for the acting writing, direction, and music. so what’s bad?
Wow, Sasha bustin’ out some Henry muthafuckin’ Rollins! Didn’t know she had it in her
.
She must have been really pissed about people bailing on TSN as frontrunner.
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