Awards Season 2018

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hearthesilence
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#26 Post by hearthesilence » Mon Jun 25, 2018 7:37 pm

The music branch is usually the most eye popping one - this year they also welcomed Chuck D, Sufjan Stevens, Wendy & Lisa, Questlove and Kendrick Lamar. I would pay a good deal of money to see that line-up.

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colinr0380
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#27 Post by colinr0380 » Tue Jun 26, 2018 1:54 am

I completely missed Yoko Kanno's inclusion. That is great to hear, as her scores for Cowboy Bebop, Macross Plus and Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex are legendary! Plus composing the title theme for the TV series of Record of Lodoss War!

On Macross Plus she arguably had the most difficult role on the project, of creating the songs for the first virtual pop star, Sharon Apple! (Plus creating the best music to fly by ever! And a memorable love triangle theme)

With Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex there feel like a lot of influences coming together there, from rap to a couple of tracks that feel a bit Bjork-inspired. And the Solid State Society film score is arguably the best part of that film. I particularly love Blues In The Net and the heartbreaking Remedium as lesser celebrated pieces from that album, but also of course the more 'banging' tracks such as replica! (In my wildest imagination I like to imagine a film adaptation of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series that starts with a half hour dedicated to the creator figures of Prelude To Foundation before a belated credit sequence kicks in to the tune of replica and segues up to the 'present' and into Foundation itself. That tune feels like it captures well the sense of eras passing by before skidding to a stop in the far future)

It had not struck me before now that she had also been the composer on Hirokazu Kore-eda's film Our Little Sister!
Last edited by colinr0380 on Thu Oct 04, 2018 5:23 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#28 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Aug 08, 2018 11:29 am

The Oscars are adding a category "for outstanding achievement in popular film" beginning with next year's ceremony.

Other relevant details from the press release:

- The telecast will be limited to three hours by giving out some awards during commercial breaks and then editing and airing them later in the broadcast

- The airdate is being moved back up into February, in this case it'll be February 24th, 2019; with a further move up in 2020 to February 9th

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Altair
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#29 Post by Altair » Wed Aug 08, 2018 11:31 am

What on Earth...! Is this just another way to try and reward blockbusters? How are they even going to define 'popular film'? Any movie which makes over $100m?

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domino harvey
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#30 Post by domino harvey » Wed Aug 08, 2018 11:32 am

Oh my God, what an awful acknowledgement of the failure of the Oscars to reward mainstream films. Just start making a conscious effort to find a blockbuster that wasn't terrible and nominate it for Best Picture, it's really not hard and that's what the Oscars used to do all the time. I am second hand embarrassed by this

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mfunk9786
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#31 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Aug 08, 2018 11:32 am

They've done some really dumb shit before, but this truly takes the cake

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domino harvey
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#32 Post by domino harvey » Wed Aug 08, 2018 11:34 am

This is the single dumbest decision they've ever made, and this is coming from the forum's resident Oscar apologist

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domino harvey
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#33 Post by domino harvey » Wed Aug 08, 2018 11:38 am

I can't wait for the guilds to strike back at the presenting awards during commercials bullshit. And the studios, who will now lose a month of box office by moving the date up.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#34 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Aug 08, 2018 11:40 am

Robbie Collin tweeted "Anyway, congratulations to Black Panther."

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Randall Maysin
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#35 Post by Randall Maysin » Wed Aug 08, 2018 11:46 am

What they SHOULD do is make a category for Best First Feature, expand the number of possible nominations for just about every category to, say, ten, and make it possible for there to be less than 5 nominations in a category if that's the way the cookie crumbles (neither is remotely feasible, especially time-wise, just wishful thinking), and cut out all the bullshit about nominating foreign language films for anything other than Best Foreign Language Film, which so far has resulted in a grand total of two (2) actors being nominated for Best Supporting Actor/Actress for a non-English-language film over the past hundred years, which is a little insulting and absurd.
Last edited by Randall Maysin on Wed Aug 08, 2018 11:47 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Altair
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#36 Post by Altair » Wed Aug 08, 2018 11:47 am

domino harvey wrote:
Wed Aug 08, 2018 11:38 am
I can't wait for the guilds to strike back at the presenting awards during commercials bullshit.
The BAFTAs already do this in their TV presentation to keep the show down to two hours; it was probably inevitable. I can also see the virtue of bringing forward an awards ceremony for films meant to have been released in the preceding year (and in reality, this will just mean the awards season campaigning will start earlier). The 'Popular Film Award' though is just staggering stupid.

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domino harvey
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#37 Post by domino harvey » Wed Aug 08, 2018 11:47 am


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swo17
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#38 Post by swo17 » Wed Aug 08, 2018 11:53 am

Honestly this isn't all that different from when you go to high school and they give out awards for both "Valedictorian" and "Best Popular Student"

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mfunk9786
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#39 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Aug 08, 2018 12:06 pm

Image

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domino harvey
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#40 Post by domino harvey » Wed Aug 08, 2018 12:26 pm

Thankfully everyone but Sasha Stone is in thunderous agreement that this is a dumb idea intended to protect against expected Black Panther backlash

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DarkImbecile
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#41 Post by DarkImbecile » Wed Aug 08, 2018 12:31 pm

I actually don't think the delayed airing of edited sequences of "lesser" awards is necessarily a bad idea if it removes the truly unnecessary parts like the long walks from the back of the theater, but there should be some guarantee that the acceptance speeches themselves for those awards be aired in their entirety, as these are sometimes the most compelling of the night.
domino harvey wrote:
Wed Aug 08, 2018 11:38 am
I can't wait for the guilds to strike back at the presenting awards during commercials bullshit. And the studios, who will now lose a month of box office by moving the date up.
From Feinberg's THR article (emphasis added above and below):
The Academy also notified members that the date for the 92nd Oscars — the one that will take place in 2020, honoring the films of 2019 — has been moved up from the previously announced Feb. 23 to Feb 9. In all likelihood, this is to combat the sense that the Oscars have become anti-climactic, coming, as it does, at the end of a months-long season in which it is preceded by dozens of other awards ceremonies. Those ceremonies won't fade away as a result of the calendar change, but people inside the industry will certainly be less burned-out by the time the Oscars finally come along.
Oh, well, then it's clearly all worth it.

Regarding the popular film category, the mind boggles.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#42 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Aug 08, 2018 12:32 pm

Some of the most insightful takes I've seen on it have come from black critics and Film Twitter folks, who are correctly likening it to something akin to segregation, saying they have no interest in seeing Black Panther honored with some kind of cynical second fiddle award.

Then again, I hear that Deadpool 2 is about as epic as a freakin' zombie ninja made of bacon, so maybe that'll take the inaugural statue
DarkImbecile wrote:
Wed Aug 08, 2018 12:31 pm
I actually don't think the delayed airing of edited sequences of "lesser" awards is necessarily a bad idea if it removes the truly unnecessary parts like the long walks from the back of the theater, but there should be some guarantee that the acceptance speeches themselves for those awards be aired in their entirety, as these are sometimes the most compelling of the night.
There is just no way they will be aired without major edits. No way at all. This will have the opposite effect.

However, ad-subsidized skits where 20 celebrities get into a bus to go walk into a movie theater to take selfies on smartphones with random people will be aired live, in their entirety. And isn't that what the Academy Awards are truly about?

Glowingwabbit
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#43 Post by Glowingwabbit » Wed Aug 08, 2018 12:41 pm

Kim Newman brings up a great point on twitter.
At the first Academy Awards in 1929, two Best Picture Oscars were awarded ... Outstanding Picture, which went to the big budget war movie Wings, and Best Unique and Artistic Picture, which went to Murnau's Sunrise ... In 1930, the Academy ditched Best Unique and Artistic Picture and just went with Outstanding Picture, won by the big budget musical The Broadway Melody. This means the Best Picture Oscar is ALREADY a dumbed-down 'most popular' award. And has been for 87 years.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#44 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Aug 08, 2018 12:43 pm

So the fact that Best Picture isn't adventurous enough should be solved by adding a far less interesting award?

This is all very interesting, but I expect the Academy to take this idea back within a matter of a few days.

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colinr0380
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#45 Post by colinr0380 » Wed Aug 08, 2018 12:43 pm

How will this decision affect all of the other awards ceremonies that come before the Oscars? Will they all have to re-jig, or just make do with the idea that they are not going to be able to get the celebrities to come to their show, especially if international travel is involved? Surely the organisers do not want the Academy Awards to be seen as being in the middle of the pack but climaxing the awards season still?
mfunk9786 wrote:
Wed Aug 08, 2018 12:43 pm
So the fact that Best Picture isn't adventurous enough should be solved by adding a far less interesting award?
I thought that was the whole point of the studios stopping making mid-budget dramas and thrillers, so the Marvel and Star Wars films had to win by default anyway?

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Re: Awards Season 2018

#46 Post by Glowingwabbit » Wed Aug 08, 2018 12:47 pm

These award shows really only serve one purpose: to make studios more money. That's why the Best Picture nominees went from 5 to 10. So this move makes perfect sense.

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Apperson
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#47 Post by Apperson » Wed Aug 08, 2018 12:52 pm

mfunk9786 wrote:
Wed Aug 08, 2018 12:43 pm
This is all very interesting, but I expect the Academy to take this idea back within a matter of a few days.
I'm floating a half-serious conspiracy theory that, assuming it gets rolled back, this was designed to assure Black Panther a Best Picture nomination in order to increase viewership.

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DarkImbecile
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#48 Post by DarkImbecile » Wed Aug 08, 2018 12:57 pm

If they want to draw more eyeballs with the biggest stars and devote time to the biggest money-makers, why not just do a better job of highlighting them during the ceremony and invite Dwayne Johnson and co. every year they release a movie?

I've always defended the importance of the Oscars for two reasons:

1) The ceremony and the awards media orbiting it provide a platform and amplification for many films that otherwise would be seen (or even made available to) many, many fewer people, and
2) Anytime a cultural event is widely seen as the standard of recognizing the "best" in a particular area of culture - no matter how flawed their process or deserving of the status - its worthwhile for people who care about that area of culture to engage with and debate and interrogate that event.

This "Achievement in Popular Film" horseshit undermines the first, perhaps fatally, and bastardizes/ghettoizes the second. Awful proposal generally, amplified by floating it without clear details regarding eligibility; classic case of undermining your core audience by reaching for a possibly imaginary subset of people who would have watched the telecast if only Vin Diesel had been there to accept an award for Fate of the Furious.

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Big Ben
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#49 Post by Big Ben » Wed Aug 08, 2018 1:02 pm

Eh it's also a way for The Academy to recognize films like Black Panther without actually letting it in on the major awards. It won't fool the more aware members but it'll look like inclusion to a mass audience.

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CSM126
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#50 Post by CSM126 » Wed Aug 08, 2018 1:24 pm

This feels like old men saying “these young whipper-snappers wanted their hippity hoppity Get Out film flam to win but we don’t like it. Ehh... make up a new award and let ‘em have that. They’ll never know the difference!”

(Best read in a Mr. Burns voice)

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