Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s naming
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times they are a-changing – Bob Dylan
You know you’re in trouble when the Hollywood Foreign Press threatens to upstage all of the other voting bodies with its diverse choices, when 90 outsiders have their fingers on the pulse of changing American culture better than thousands of insiders who work in the industry. Today, the DGA named their choices for five Best Directors of the year. They named Richard Linklater for Boyhood, Wes Anderson for The Grand Budapest Hotel, Alejandro G. Inarritu for Birdman, Clint Eastwood for American Sniper, and Morton Tyldum for The Imitation Game. They omitted two of 2014’s most memorable films by anyone’s definition, David Fincher’s Gone Girl and Ava DuVernay’s Selma. In case you haven’t been paying attention, that’s the ONLY film in the race written by a woman, and the only film still left in the race directed by a woman. Seeing a pattern here?
The race for Best Picture is mostly settled and has been since Telluride. Nothing came along to really challenge Boyhood, a beautifully made film about the tender upbringing of a young man coming of age in a complicated country. It’s the crowning achievement of Richard Linklater who has been reinventing what can be done with cinema with each new film he’s made throughout his career. Linklater has never been in it for any reason except to make great art. That is worth all of the awards the film is about to reap.
For a while it seemed like Alejandro G. Inarritu’s Birdman, which launched in Venice, might be that actors’ movie that could overtake it in a Crash/Brokeback kind of dramatic last act. But Boyhood has proved much more resilient than anyone thought. Next up was the Weinstein Co’s Imitation Game, which did very well with the Telluride crowd, won the audience award up in Toronto, and excited the festival-going demo to no end. It has the stamp of “importance,” a persecuted gay man, without any of the messy gay sex to go along with that. That’s the way the straight world likes it — all tidied up and hidden away. I didn’t think the movie deserved the criticisms it got for that omission, nor did I think the strange story behind the real Chris Kyle was any reason to punish American Sniper. They’re movies, after all. All of that changed, however, when the DGA shut out Ava DuVernay’s Selma, a film that got so much heat in the days leading up to the Oscar ballot deadline. The controversy might effectively knock it out of the competition altogether.
The attacks against the film were so fevered and so intense they made it all the way up to the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, CNN and TIME magazine. Intelligent journalists were “bothered” by the film’s treatment of LBJ, specifically regarding J. Edgar Hoover. It felt personal, this. They were uniting in their defense of a blighted American president who they complained was not given his due in this film. There was a suggestion that the film’s depiction of LBJ was somehow sinister or mean or, dare we say it, ANGRY?
If you’re black you can never afford to be thought of as angry. You have to smile and smile some more and smile yet more times, no matter what people say to you. This is doubly so if you’re a woman. Be nice and SMILE! DuVernay comes from film marketing and knows full well how this sick little game works.
And just how does this game work? It works when Mississippi Burning gets in for Best Picture — in spite of the way it turned the facts inside out and made white men the heroes of a black struggle. It works when a community of voices came together to protest the way the slaves were being portrayed in Gone with the Wind, but instead of it getting shut out, it sweeps the Oscars. Even Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple got in for major nominations, winning the DGA, with controversy following it every step of the way. But Selma? Not so fast, little girl, that’s a US President you’re talking about.
The degree of unanimous protests against Selma were all too creepily timed to hit the airwaves just as ballots were sailing into the hands of not too savvy industry voters who are never really paying attention that closely.
They weren’t catching the wave of excitement Selma’s mere presence brought to audiences – not because history was about to be made with the first black female director in the Oscar race, but because Selma was such a very good film, such a moving film, such a sensual, breathtaking, wholly original work that no one really knew what to do with it. They were scared of it, probably.
It was very unlikely The Imitation Game was going to unseat Boyhood, and less likely that Birdman would. But Selma? That was looking too strong for comfort. Something really had to be done about Selma. Thus, the “controversy” likely gave voters a reason to stay home, and if no screeners arrived in time? So be it.
It isn’t that any of the five DGA nominees are bad. It isn’t even that their decision to honor Eastwood at his old age being able to still direct great war scenes was a bad one. Or that their adherence to the old film awards cliche with The Imitation Game, getting traction for being a film about an oppressed gay protagonist. They’re perfectly fine. It isn’t so much that they were included, it’s what got excluded that makes all the difference here.
I could go on and on about David Fincher not getting in for Gone Girl. Low-level misogyny and disinterest in anything that’s popular with women seemed to put Gone Girl in the “unimportant” pile, no matter that it’s likely one of the few films that reached the public at large, at least this year. That it isn’t an “Oscar movie” is a reminder that this whole dumb circus is a sham because Selma IS an “Oscar movie,” so what’s their excuse this time? They didn’t get screeners in time? They couldn’t get off of their lazy, entitled asses to go out and see what many are calling the most “important” film of the year? Aren’t they all about “important”? Ah but you see, they aren’t. The word “Important” has an asterisk next to it and next to the asterick is the following fine print:
*We here in the industry define important as that which matters to white men. If it doesn’t involve white men or else the white men aren’t the saviors we have little interest in it. We don’t care about anything other than that which makes us feel good about ourselves.
Gone Girl did virtually no FYC advertising. They did not play the Oscar game this year the way the other films did. It would have to succeed on merit alone. If anything can be learned about this year’s race it’s that merit alone means squat. I don’t even think Boyhood would have gotten in without a heavy awards push. Ditto Birdman, ditto Grand Budapest, both in the capable hands of Fox Searchlight.
But Selma did do the campaigning, tirelessly. DuVernay was everywhere. The film was being written about, talked about, advertised heavily everywhere. The Hard No is like an ancient, flaking wall that’s been standing tall for too long; it’s a barrier that holds back everything that’s great about our changing culture in 2015 and what might be coming next. It’s a dream extinguisher, a font of decay that represents an old world. It’s the card game in Sunset Boulevard all over again.
In a year with the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, in a year that has been rife with heated debate about civil rights and voter rights, issues which are still far from settled, the DGA puts its head in the sand and forgot that the defining movies in a given year should not reflect the singular tastes of an elitist, separatist entity, but should reflect the broader cultural conversation, the movies that people are really talking about, because otherwise, why bother making movies for the public at all? Why not just make them for your own private little club, a club that has limited membership and strict rules about appropriate content.
This is an important day to remember. The industry will discover, too late probably, that the walls are closing in around them. They won’t exist for much longer because great filmmakers will stop making movies entirely and head to television. All that will be left is that one arrogant rich guy standing in the balcony clapping for the one thing he wanted to see on stage, whether it was good or bad, successful or not.
These voters have given us their choices for best of this year. Some of them deserve it, some of them don’t. The glaring omissions are the only films that were backed by women – the only one written by a woman, Gone Girl, and the only one directed by a woman that had the remotest chance, Selma. Hollywood has given us that Hard No with a fleshy white palm beaming at us from the road not taken, a disappointing roadblock, a needless obstacle.
What they’re missing, and it will ultimately be their demise, is that they are rendering themselves slowly but surely irrelevant. Voices of the many are not interested in an outmoded conversation. They will fly past the awards race stopping momentarily to gaze at the diorama of what the Hollywood industry looked like back when it refused to adapt.
Or as Dylan would say:
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fading
And the first one now will later be last
For the times they are a-changing
Thursday, the Academy will announce, at last, its nominees for the 87th Academy Awards.
![2025 Oscars: Can a Late-Breaker Still Win Best Picture? [POLL]](https://www.awardsdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/gladiator-350x250.jpg)
“If come tomorrow Selma is left out then we can definitely see the beginnings of the academy making themselves irrelevant”
Why? So does that mean DGA is irrelevant? Is it possible that they just don’t agree with most critics? Why does everything about Selma have to be so political? Is it possible that the industry just doesn’t care about the film??
“I think Ava duVernay is a more skillful and nuanced director than Steve McQueen,”
Nah
Maybe American Sniper is the one I should be leaving off (but, again, I can’t bring myself to do it, although I’d love for that to happen – it is PGA and DGA-nominated, after all), so I’ll go with this order, actually (not breaking my promise, it’s the same 10 as before):
Boyhood
Birdman
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
The Theory of Everything
Whiplash
Gone Girl
Foxcatcher
Selma
American Sniper
Actually, since I’m finding it really hard to objectively bump any of the (statistically) weaker ones (The Theory of Everything, Selma, Whiplash, Foxcatcher or Gone Girl), I’ll just go with 10, in the end – and my bet would be it’ll be at least 9 (or 8, or 7…) of these 10, and no others, maybe (but very likely not) all 10. I’d rather be certain to be wrong this way than once more find that my intuition has let me down and I chose the wrong one to leave off a 9-nominee list. That would annoy me more, I imagine. So here they are – I promise, final version (no alternates):
Boyhood
Birdman
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
The Theory of Everything
American Sniper
Gone Girl
Whiplash
Foxcatcher
Selma
So I guess the personal touches for my list are that it still doesn’t feature Nightcrawler, like most lists out there will, by now, and the fact that I’m predicting 10 – it’d be cool if I was right about that, though I obviously won’t be… I guess I’m supporting Ryan’s theory that 10 are quite possible a little bit too, which is nice. 🙂
So I guess here are my final predictions for who will be nominated for BP:
Boyhood
Birdman
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
The Theory of Everything
American Sniper
Gone Girl
Whiplash
Foxcatcher (Alt.: Selma, Nightcrawler, Unbroken)
Maybe even since the early ’50s…
I totally agree with the sentiment of this article, but what I don’t get is why in the case of the PGA not including selma the reaction was to not worry as they hadn’t sent out enough screeners, but in the case of the DGA this suddenly signals a reflection of the academy’s tastes. Isn’t it exactly the same situation? The Selma campaign didn’t send out screeners to the DGA, PGA or SAG, they had a limited budget and so only concentrated on the academy voters. If come tomorrow Selma is left out then we can definitely see the beginnings of the academy making themselves irrelevant, but I for one am holding out hope that Ava Duvernay get’s an ampas directors nod. It could genuinely just be the screeners issue.
It’s close between this and Munich, but Munich was at least marginally more interesting (and definitely better made). So maybe American Sniper would be the worst since the early 1980s, really… I even prefer Precious to it, which I never really thought I’d say about any BP nominee ever again…
“Just saw American Sniper.
Inaccuracies or not. Good performance by Cooper or not. “Return to form” by Eastwood or not … what a boring film.”
Pretty much… It would (and will, sadly) be the worst BP nominee for at least 10 years… If further proof was needed that the quality of a film has little to do with it being nominated for Best Picture or not, American Sniper is it (and I’m actually one of those who think they do tend to nominate most of the good stuff, and mostly good stuff, about 80-90% of the time, but that might just be due to studios, or whoever handles the campaigns, picking the movies they end up promoting, at least partially, based on merit). I have to admit this is very disappointing coming from Clint Eastwood. I wouldn’t go so far as to agree with Ryan that he never had it to begin with (you can make one near-flawless masterpiece by accident, maybe, but not two – Unforgiven, Letters), but, whatever he had, it looks as though he’s lost it. 🙁
“But in reality it’s not their taste. To me, it’s been clear for a few years now that the Academy are just doing what their told. Last year we got lucky that they were told to award a good movie.”
Sounds about right. Probably not 100% true, but close enough…
I for one am glad that Gone Girl got shot out. I thought the movie went downhill once the “twist” was revealed – and that was in the middle of the movie. It’s just not a well structured movie.
Sasha, I know it’s a big deal. If it were me I’m not quite sure I’d include Fincher in the DGA final 5 either, it’s a very tough call to make. But as I said Gone Girl has nominations with the PGA and WGA. Flynn is doing just fine. As important as this is for Gone Girl to be nominated for a DGA and a best director Oscar, we’re starting to pick straws here. Down the line the battle is going to be getting a film nominated that is the only sci-fi book adapted by a woman to make it in Oscar history…directed by a man. It’s just getting way too specific and it takes attention away from the rest of the film when Flynn probably will win the Oscar for writing. Does it suck that Fincher wasn’t nominated? Yes it does. But rather than focusing on how much it indirectly sucks for women in the industry, I focus on an amazing director getting passed over. That all said I do expect either Fincher or DuVernay, or hell even Chazelle, to get in come Oscar morning. That would make my week.
@ WW And not forget 12 YAS last Year! Let´s stay tuned till tomorrow – then we really know the wort of the academy!
You pinpoint exactly what could be conceived as problematic about TGBH, but the abundance of narrative styles is, rather, an embarrassment of riches. It’s such a generous gesture on Anderson’s part. Since what he is trying to establish is a meditation on the past and how it relates to the present (and how , to be even more exact, nostalgia informs our perception of the past), what he does, is that he tries to show us how memory distorts reality and how a good story gets even better when recollected through the prism of nostalgia. Or something like that. I’m in a hurry here, so I don’t have time to absolutely nail this;) But that’s why I think the clash of narrative styles is necessary for him to tell the story like it needs to be told to highlight the problem of nostalgia and the selective quality of memory.
Hahaha, Julian 😛
I just thought TGBH was a mess, too many types of narratives going on all at once that it never felt like a cohesive story for me–the love story, the caper story, the history, the politics, the comedy, the surprising violence, the comedy, the sadness, blah blah blah blah. The film is exhausting. It’s gorgeous though. I’ll give it that.
‘TGBH is just more of the same.’
No, Benutty, just no. You know what’s more of the same? You rambling…(Good thing, I agree with you half of the time)…;)
I found this a bit over the top, considering that 12 YEARS A SLAVE won the Oscar for best picture last year 🙂 I do not believe that films by women should be nominated just because they could be nominated. Ava will get nominated if or indeed when she is considered among the five best directors.
While I think The Imitation Game is great and American Sniper is good, neither of them is a better showcase of on-point direction than Selma is. That being said, if one of these guys had to miss out so that DuVernay’s astonishing work could have been included, I’d say that it should have been Anderson. The Grand Budapest Hotel is one more animal on an increasingly tall totem of the same schtick–Anderson carves each film from the same log, making one only slightly different from the previous, both aesthetically and thematically. On one hand it’s great he’s finally getting the awards recognition a career as consistently good as his deserves, but with it coming so late in his game I can’t help but feel bored by it. I wish it had come on the heels of a truly stand-out and fresh new idea from him (personally I thought Moonrise Kingdom could have been this stand-out). Instead TGBH is just more of the same.
Gone Girl was ridiculously entertaining, but it’s just not an Oscar-type movie, not really a snub there. I haven’t seen Selma yet, so I can’t judge its merits, but you can’t criticize voters for not rushing out to see a film. It literally went wide release DAYS ago. Paramount’s own damn fault for not sending out screeners.
These claims that there are seedy agendas behind the scenes that are forcing your favorite movies to be snubbed are just not accurate. These award races every year are purely about momentum. This is why Boyhood won’t be stopped, why 12 Years a Slave led from beginning to finish last year, why Argo cleaned up (one of the most undeserved winners IMO) after the DGA snub, why Artist led from beginning to finish, why King’s Speech swept the guilds and then the Oscars, etc. You can go on and on, but momentum always decides these races, people like to vote for a winner.
Arjecc, we can all play that game: Name a great movie that lost to an inferior one for Best Picture. To your list, I would add ”All the President’s Men,” ”E.T.,” and ”Brokeback Mountain.” But taste is so subjective. In fairness to the Academy, here are some terrific movies that DID win Best Picture: ”It Happened One Night,” ”Gone With the Wind,” ” Casablanca,” ”All About Eve,” ”On the Waterfront,” ”Lawrence of Arabia,” ”Midnight Cowboy,” ”The Godfather,” ”One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” ”Silence of the Lambs,” ”Schindler’s List,” etc. … To me, ”Boyhood” has an universal quality, but only time will tell if it lasts.
Oscar films can only be “Important” films is the fallacy preventing comedy from ever being included as a BP contender.
Unfortunately, there is a long history of the Academy behaving the way they do now and it is we who shouldn’t put so much weight to it because in the end, they don’t really influence audiences tastes or critics and filmmakers. Citizen Kane, Vertigo, Apocalypse Now, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Pulp Fiction, Singin in the Rain etc.. all didn’t win Best Picture, in some cases, weren’t even nominated for it and we all know how their legacy stands. Even Boyhood, while a wonderful film is very today, is no great art and won’t necessarily transfer always a la “Kramer vs. Kramer”, and that’s a better film, although in all fairness, there isn’t a much more superior film that came out this year. King’s Speech winning over Social Network or Artist over Tree of Life is when I officially stopped caring. Indubitably, Gone Girl, lnto the Woods, and Selma will definitely be the more iconic movies of 2014, I think, despite their flaws.
Steve50, I hope you’re wrong about ”Imitation Game” taking it away from ”Boyhood.” To me, ”Imitation Game” is a standard Brit biopic. But it’s new ad campaign isn’t even trying to sell you on the merits of the movie: It’s pleading for your pity to help the world recognize Alan Turing, a gay genius ”who was persecuted for his sexuality.” In essence: ”Vote for this movie and support gay rights, but we won’t creep you out by showing Turing doing anything gay.”
I think ”Imitation Game’s” best shot at an Oscar is Adapted Screenplay. ”Milk,” a better movie about another gay hero, won for Original Screenplay.
It’s worse a worse thing that a shitty film like American Sniper is getting kudos than a great film like Selma is being excluded. I mean, there are so many superior films to choose from and the Directors Guild is slapping Eastwood on the back AGAIN? For standard fare? You could throw in The Imitation Game, too, although that is a solid picture. But to exclude worthy films like Gone Girl, Selma, Mr. Turner, or the exciting Whiplash for those by-the-numbers entries and the guild starts to lose its credibility.
You are right Sasha, it’s a Good Ole Boy’s Club if there ever was one.
Sasha makes solid arguments, her heart’s in the right place, but the Academy Awards is a private, commercialized, industry organization (with maximized publicity) and the wrong platform to advocate such noble ideas.
Yes! The Selma snub is going to cause the industry to crawl up and die! How right you are!
Last I checked the three biggest films on end of the year lists are the three Oscar frontrunners.
I have to side with Antoinette’s comment. There is a special kind of passion that I also think is missing from most of this year’s frontrunners, and that is the challenge a great film dumps in your lap that makes you question. There were plenty of films this year that did such a thing. It was present at one end of the spectrum in Captain America and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and also at the opposite end by A Most Violent Year, The Congress and Locke. Yeah, these are all easily dismissed as non-Oscar fare, but when you look at the leaders in the race?
Boyhood is a brilliant observation, no doubt about it; it is so unusual that it easily stands out from the rest. I don’t know that it presents any challenges to the audience – nor does it have to.
As for the rest, well, it’s guys doin’ what they do just fine until somethin’ happens and they can’t do it anymore. There’s no audience challenge in rooting against Nazi’s or debilitating disease or professional failure or (holds nose) the moral dilemma of war. One doesn’t have to grab onto anything, just sit there. Pick your cause or your hero and off you go.
Gone Girl or Nightcrawler are challenging, but Oscar never wants to look too closely into the abyss. Alternatively, I’m obviously not alone in loving Wes Anderson for riding his unicycle through the funeral parlour, but he won’t get BP.
As far as predictions go, I’m guessing it’s down to three: Boyhood, The Imitation Game and American Sniper
I still see The Imitation Game taking it from Boyhood. It’s just a gut feeling that comes from all the ads striking all the right notes about all the correct and “important” things in that manner that has been so successful for HW. That said, it would not shock – only sadden – if American Sniper continues to build momentum. I don’t think that they’ll want to give it to Eastwood again and I doubt that Harvey can turn Tyldum into a heavyweight quickly enough, so Linklater is probably safer than his film. Where Sniper is probably gaining is in Best Actor. Say what you want about Keaton, Redmayne has arguably led this race up to now, but when you start combining Bradley Cooper’s best performance in his third consecutive nomination with the hero card, however unfounded, watch your back.
Anyway, I’ve got no horse in the race this year. I’ll be the one in the nosebleed seat with the binoculars and very large hat, sun glinting off the flask of gin at regular intervals.
I donno what all the fuzz is about…maybe they just liked American Sniper better (I haven’t seen it so no opinion), they don’t have to vote for a film only because its theme is important. After all, it is just directors portraying their OPINION, time will or will not decide which films from 2014 are worth revisiting. Remember Sasha, we just do this prediction thing for fun 😛
In case you haven’t been paying attention, that’s the ONLY film in the race written by a woman, and the only film still left in the race directed by a woman. Seeing a pattern here?
No, not at all. The problematic pattern I’m seeing isn’t that they omitted the only films written and/or directed by women, but that there are so few prestige pics financed by major studios being written and/or directed by women. Were women given more opportunities (from school through their professional lives), we’d have more good and bad Oscar bait from women. Morten Tyldem did nothing special in his bland bait-pic ‘Imitation Game’ – it was a hack job, but one that could’ve gone to a woman. Sasha, I disagree that awards and critical merit must be given to any woman who creates anything that seems to qualify for acclaim. I think that cheapens work done by women and cheapens what we consider special or mediocre. Where we agree is that there should be more opportunities for women to make films that can be great. The issue has never been who wins the Oscars – it has everything to do with who has the ability to make films that win Oscars.
All that said, the ‘Gone Girl’ snub was what I consider a genre snub, sort of akin to the bias against fantasy and sci-fi. In this case, the category is Really Freaking Fun Movie. Never forget: a film that is pure entertainment – which is often the best kind – is considered trivial. ‘Gone Girl’ sadly falls into that category.
I loved Gone Girl and have yet to see Selma and I have problems with the list too! Having said that, I think the tone is melodramatic. The industry creates for the audience. In the same way, the industry rubber stamps the choices it wants the audience to see. Box office or public support is irrelevant. Gone Girl is a great movie and should be rewarded for that and that only. If not, Guardians of the Galaxy and the Hunger Games should be the frontrunners of the Best Pic race. And to launch a complaint that the DGA is sexist for their choices is empty. The DGA chose Gravity last year and nominated Fincher for Girl with the Dragon Tattoo!
Bravo!!!…that’s all I gotta say.
I know it’s so quick and easy to jump on the “the academy is racist … racism, racism, racism” train; however, every director nominated deserves their nominations. Plain and simple.
Great post–it is true that they render themselves irrelevant in the process. I think that movies should be judged based solely on merit and not on the gender, race, etc. of its protagonists of their makers or stories. But it is clear that that IS NOT the standard by which movies are judged. Movies made by or about women or minorities are held to different standards than movies by or about straight white guys. It is no wonder that we have things like Ferguson. if the “liberals” of Hollywood are that prejudiced…
Here’s Scott Feinberg’s take on the DGA’s ”Selma” snub (from the Hollywood Reporter):
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/dga-noms-story-behind-snub-763334
Antoinette nice post but I’m sorry if you thought that Jake deserved to win over Eddie you will be weeping the entire season and should of already bought of box of tissues lol. No way in the world sweetheart. . No way.
Sasha, snubbing Fincher sucked. But don’t make it seem like the DGA slighted a woman (Flynn) by snubbing Fincher.
I am saying that when we talk about the Best Picture race they are electing to snub the one movie written by a woman. I’m not into the pat on the back marginalization of contenders – I want them to be in the power seat and the power seat is BP. So yeah. It’s been bugging me all year and it still bugs me. The movie should be rewarded for all of being such a success and having been written by a woman – it’s a big, big deal.
What they’re missing, and it will ultimately be their demise, is that they are rendering themselves slowly but surely irrelevant.
I couldn’t agree with this more. It seems like we’re right on the precipice. I’ve never been a TV person. I used to love watching movies in a sold out crowd. Now I’m just so used to being forced to watch movies at home that I really don’t care anymore. They’re putting in barcaloungers at the AMC I usually go to, which knocked the number of screens down from 12 to 8 during Christmas. Apart from that being the stupidest time to schedule a shrinking number of screens I can’t imagine that people are going to stay awake in those damn things. So the thought of listening to my fellow movie watchers snore and put the feet thing up and down over and over makes me think I’m going to just wait for the redbox/Netflix most of the time now.
The other thing is, you guys know, I’ve been coming here since forever because I used to really enjoy the Oscar race. I’m not into predicting. Never was. I just liked rooting for my favorites. I’ve always just wanted them to get to the big shows. I wanted to see them walk down the red carpet and get that recognition that says when they eventually do leave us, they might be an Academy Award winning, but at least nominated, dead guy/gal. Well that’s started to not seem to mean much lately with the choices they make. I think the first time I really didn’t understand what the Academy was thinking was when SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE won. I understood what the Brokeback situation was. But SM was just a bad movie to me. Torture porn with a dance number. Since then it’s mostly only gotten worse. Their taste has gone to shit.
But in reality it’s not their taste. To me, it’s been clear for a few years now that the Academy are just doing what their told. Last year we got lucky that they were told to award a good movie. This year? Not so much if it goes as planned. As this season has gone on and they’ve not deviated slightly from the projected course, I’ve just been thinking “Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck Yooooooooooooooouuuuuuuuu………………..” To no one in particular. Just that unnamed group of assholes who appear to not be able to think for themselves. They might not even exist. But it seems like they do.
I actually think that 2014 was a much better year than 2013 for movie fans. I stopped calling myself a film buff a ways back because there’s a certain snobbishness in that which I don’t want to emulate. I like entertainment. I like entertainers. I don’t want to stand around eating cheese pretending that the important movie is my favorite when in reality I’d rather bounce along to “Everything is Awesome”. And what’s more to the point I actually think the entertaining movies this year were in fact better films than the Oscar fare for the most part. The movies that I’ve seen that are in the race, so to speak, that are not BOYHOOD, are in some cases very good but somewhat deficient. There are things missing in these supposedly great films. Whether I’d classify them as flawed or not, they’re not of the quality I’d expect from Oscar movies.
Now the blockbusters that were never in the race this year were much closer to flawless in my opinion. But they were blockbusters. They were genre pictures. They were fun for cripes’ sake. Those things pretty much disqualify you from consideration now. I find that ridiculous. It wasn’t always that way. But as the years go on people seem to be accepting this. As if Oscar movies have to be serious or important. They have to be about something melancholy or sad, or ho-hum. I would qualify this year as one of the most milquetoast years I’ve ever seen for an awards season.
As I watched the Golden Globes I kinda realized how invested I wasn’t. Not because my personality changed or anything. That’s not going to happen. But the stuff I like either wasn’t nominated or stood no chance. And then the only awards I really have any hope for, the acting awards, came and went. And I was looking at Jake Gyllenhaal’s widdle face after he didn’t win, and I’m thinking “what are we doing? Why do we even give a shit about this?” It used to be fun. It used to be exciting. Now it’s just so old and tired. The time of the megawatt star isn’t gone, its just shifted to our living rooms. We don’t need these award shows anymore. If they’re going to hand everything over to blah and meh then I’ve got clothes drying that I can watch.
I’m just going to listen to this song as they read the nominations Thursday morning and weep.
I loved Selma. But as soon as it was over, I thought: “No way is the Academy going to give Best Picture to a black filmmaker two years in a row.” I hate to be that cynical but the Academy felt they did the right thing last year so they don’t feel any guilt at all this year if they snub Selma. Which is a shame. Because I think Ava duVernay is a more skillful and nuanced director than Steve McQueen, talented as he is.
I think you should of waited until the actual oscar nominations to write this article very well written but who cares about the dga. . That’s not why we are here. If neither get in Thursday you can raise hell buti feel confident they still will.
It’s been well documented that Hollywood can’t stand a mirror into itself. So they look elsewhere (geniuses saving the world and/or handicapped overcoming the odds, schizoid actors who conveniently turn around REALLY evil art critics -THAT film should have been made by Robert Alman, damn it!-) It’s miraculous either The Hurt Locker or NCFOM wins in this context for the past t8 or 9 years. I didn’t see Selma, but suspect that a slightly fictionalization of a US President would be too much to tolerate. Except if your last name is Nixon, apparently. Or not. Who cares. I will find solace only when the only relatable film in the DGA mix wins. I film that hold a mirror into yourself (whether your a child, parent, sibling or whatever; whether you think it’s a bore or a gimmick) wins the hole thing and put these arguments to rest. And miracle number 3 happens, finally. You know which film I’m talking about. Or else give it to Anderson, who apparently learned how to translate Mr. Fox cartoon-like antics to live action films. I will be fine with either one of those. And Selma will be fine. In the company of celebrated films never rewarded by the Academy. Nothing to feel shame about.
Eastwood is like that annoying fly buzz. Ever present. So I hope Chazelle is in if DuVernay is snubbed. And let Linklater (or Anderson, if a miror is too much to bear for you) eat the whole cake at last. For a change, you know?
Now that all major nominations had been announced, I updated the chart, there are some surprises : is Fiennes now firmly in the top5 ahead of Oyelowo and Carell ? Could American Sniper make a big splash although basically “only” the guilds embraced it ? Who has the fifth slot in Best Actress, Aniston, who received SAG and Golden Globe nods, or Adams who won the Golden Globe and received a Bafta nod ? Selma is written off at the moment due to lack of guild support, but could the Academy screeners make all the difference in the end ? Is there a category shock in our near future (Streep upgrade or Carell downgrade) ? Anyway, here it is :
http://awardscorner.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/2014-nominations-chart.html#more
Sasha, snubbing Fincher sucked. But don’t make it seem like the DGA slighted a woman (Flynn) by snubbing Fincher. It’s forgetting all the accolades that came for the movie already, it’s lazy reasoning. Gone Girl has been nominated for the PGA and Flynn has been nominated for a WGA award (which she’ll probably win). Using the whole “It’s a movie backed by a woman ergo the DGA couldn’t handle #truth” as an excuse just won’t cut it. It’s a shame DuVernay missed. Having just seen Selma I can comfortably say it’s one of the finest films directed of the year.
GREAT observation about Mississippi Burning. This faux outrage about Selma’s historical accuracy seems laughable when looking at the Guild rampage American Sniper has been on (which is why I speculate that the smear campaign originated there).
Another good read in regards to why Linklater makes the films he does. No matter what one thinks of Boyhood, clearly no one involved with that film started the project aiming for Oscar glory. I said this before, but I get very tired of Oscar-bait films that try so freaking hard to be capital I Important. It’s not a coincidence that Scorcese finally took home Oscar when he stopped trying so damn hard to win one. You may disagree with me, but Fincher, despite his personal distaste for campaigning, does attach himself to Oscar bait (cough..cough..Benjamin Button). Wes Anderson seems not to care a whit either, which might explain his film’s rise.
Linklater’s GG speech was incredibly humble and genuine, and I think he’s hitting lightning in a bottle with the mood of the guild voters.