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No, still stupid

mfunk9786 wrote:I think there's a hell of a lot of difference between a film critic doing it on his own blog and someone doing it on our forum's Top 10 thread

I pretty sure the earlier revival was for Richard Brody on his own blog.

Fair enough. I see no problem with it.

mfunk9786 wrote:Glenn Kenny's year end list is always without equal. Among other notes is that he seems to have some very harsh feelings toward Manchester by the Sea upon revisiting it/sitting with it for a while.

I've been putting off MANCHESTER - for what, two months now? - due to the once-nagging-now-overpowering feeling that critics are running a little too fast down too steep of a slope on this one. Call it "The Jeffrey Wells Problem", if you will.

Kenny's comments here raise an eyebrow for me, to say the least.

It's a great movie, but I suppose now is a better time than any to be cynical about just about everything

domino harvey wrote:No, still stupid

but what is still worse than a numbered top n list would be making a top TEN but leaving it unnumbered and unordered.

movielocke wrote:

domino harvey wrote:No, still stupid

but what is still worse than a numbered top n list would be making a top TEN but leaving it unnumbered and unordered.

Why? I, personally, am fine with a proper ranked list, but I would imagine for me and for many others what's #5 could potentially be #6 on another day, or maybe even #8 - the difference in quality ranges from great to greater, and the specifics aren't as important as the inclusion itself as your opinion of what is arbitrarily, specifically better than another thing can vary considerably depending on the day.

Writer's Guild nominees:

Adapted:

Arrival
Deadpool
Fences
Hidden Figures
Nocturnal Animals

Original:
Hell or High Water
La La Land
Loving
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight

If Deadpool gets an Oscar nomination... :-&

No Love & Friendship but Deadpool, okay, great

Well, given the state of Hollywood movies, that would explain a lot.

Lady Susan is minor Austen.

Far cry from the days when the writing branch nominated Metropolitan. for best original screenplay.

And according to that guy, Love & Friendship wasn't even an "omission of any note."

As a WGA member and awards voter, it's clear screeners play a major role in getting nominations. Screeners generally start showing up right before Thanksgiving and keep coming through Christmas. In years past, I LOVE YOU PHLLIP MORRIS and PLEASE GIVE both benefited by sending out screeners in late September/early October. That gave guild members a lot of nights with no other screeners to compete with when deciding what to pop in. That really helps get the movie seen within the voting population.

This year LOVE & FRIENDSHIP sent a link to a digital screener, not a DVD. I suspect that makes a big difference with older voters. (HAIL CAESAR and CAPTAIN FANTASTIC also sent links and neither received nominations.) The LOVE & FRIENDSHIP link was communicated in an email on December 21st when voting had already started, Christmas was fast approaching and WGA members already had a fat stack of screeners to get through. (LOVE & FRIENDSHIP sent a hard copy of the screenplay earlier, but, honestly, who reads those? It's basically a way to remind people about your film without sending them a screener.)

DEAD POOL, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY and THE DARK KNIGHT benefit by having an enormous viewership in their theatrical releases. (THE DARK KNIGHT also sent a screener.) This makes it very easy for a widely seen and arguably inferior film like DEAD POOL to get more votes than a film with a limited release like Stillman's.

To be clear, I'm not a fan of the system -- and I did vote for LOVE & FRIENDSHIP. But given the nature of its campaign, I don't think it was seen widely enough. I believe SELMA had a similar problem in 2014 with the Oscars. They got into the awards campaign right at the end. I wouldn't say that's the entire reason it was left out of so many categories, but it certainly didn't help.

Some interesting insights, thanks for sharing!

It would be fascinating to know the percentage of the films that are actually viewed by the various members of the different voting bodies.

Anyone I've ever known in a guild is super excited to get screeners in the mail and watch them, so I'd imagine it's on the higher end. Most people would probably also be surprised by how many famous/accomplished actors love to watch movies/see their peers' work, it's not a burden or chore to as many Academy members as you'd think.

But it is a well known fact that they receive a large amount of screeners and short amount of time to watch them all. I'm sure some are predisposed to watch films they heard good thing about, with films receiving less critical appraisal below on the queue. At least that the impression I get from all the reviews and writings online, that some screeners arrived late, there was no time etc.

I know people who watch every screener and I know people who watch the two or three films everyone's talking about and that's it. Obviously, the biggest, buzziest films rise to the top and can send screeners late and people will still watch them. I try to get through everything but movie fatigue sets in and there's always something I don't see.

In recent awards seasons I've received 20-25 screeners/year. It's rare to see a DEADPOOL or a GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY that gets a nomination without sending a screener. Most years, all the nominees come from films that sent out screeners.

There are lots of industry screenings representing a much greater number of the year's releases. Based on the nominations, screenings are clearly not as effective at generating votes as screeners. Likewise with digital links.

In ten years, with the exception of INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS (which had a very good awards campaign), every snub and surprise inclusion made perfect sense to me when weighing the film's buzz against whether that film sent a screener and, if so, the timing of that screener.

FrauBlucher wrote:It would be fascinating to know the percentage of the films that are actually viewed by the various members of the different voting bodies.

It varies, I watch 100% of the films I get, but I don't always get them all watched before the awards, depending on work demands, but my IATSE local is a non-voting body, as it's the private country club pseudo-guild above us that does the voting and events and hands out the awards, I tend to prioritize based on what I want to see theatrically and what has buzz. I watched Carol, last year, the day I got it, for example. So did almost everyone I know, they watched it right away because it was so high profile and so extremely buzzed as the bestest best thing to ever be made. This might have actually backfired a little, as everyone saw the film on the earlier end of the awards season (thus enthusiasm had faded somewhat) and also judged it against the extreme hype and later the total monotonous critical lecturing lockstep.

just today, a coworker of mine said he tried to watch "Mopechester" over the weekend but can't muster up any enthusiasm to finish the second half of the film. I told him he should finish "whitechester" and then got derailed by a conversation about how I thought the film was on long island until they suddenly bring up boston at the very end of the film and I felt really stupid about it. In any event, he decided to watch Nocturnal Animals and remained non-committal about finishing it in spite of my praise for the film's merits. and we both talked about our plans to see Silence theatrically within the next week because it feels wrong to watch it on a screener.

For the most part, people love getting films early, they generally enjoy going to screenings (there was a lot of excitement when hateful eight opened up screenings last year), but obviously can't go to very many screenings, for the most part, so the convenience of screeners is crucial. I'd say my experience is that most voters in most awards bodies watch about 75-85% of the seasonal awards films as screeners and they pay to see the seasonal tentpole films like star wars that don't send screeners, and they catch the rest at screenings or use a guild card at the multiplex to see films for free (though you don't get a free plus one, iirc, though that can vary by chain and by what studios are willing to reimburse (and you have to do it at the box office which is a pain, nowadays). and I'd say the vast majority of voters watch around 50% of their screeners, with many watching more.

I think a far more interesting question is what on earth would go on before screeners existed?

Well when the oscars started it was just the big studios' films that were nominated, so much easier to convince voters to watch them. It is interesting how the process went from the 50s though and how films like Grand Illusion can get nominated. My guess for most films it was good old campaigning and convincing voters with gifts and parties