Embargoes? We Don’t Need No Stinking Embargoes.

Anne Thompson’s plug for Oscar Talk:

In Contention‘s Kris Tapley and I have actually seen most of the Oscar movies now, and even though we’re not supposed to write about all of them yet, we do talk about the sexy musical Nine, Clint Eastwood’s Invictus and the mixed reaction to Peter Jackson‘s The Lovely Bones. We also get into the rising fortunes of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds and the marketing behind the last movie to be unveiled in coming weeks, James Cameron’s Avatar.

Click on over to Anne’s site for the podcast.

Iggy in the comments section wanted to know why embargoes were important. There is only one reason I can think of: to calm throbbing egos bruised from the self-imposed hierarchy of the season. But I can actually think of one good reason – the hype has been known to destroy perfectly good Oscar contenders as voters reach for that which has not been hyped up to death. Keeping the blogs quiet helps to calm the chatter somewhat. That’s one reason. Another is that, in my experience, those who write the reviews for the big sites can sometimes react off of what the early-screening folks write. Perhaps it isn’t something can be proved, but it has long since been something I sense. What gets lost in all of this? You be the judge.

Steve Pond sees it slightly differently over at The Wrap.