..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Kim Voynar
..Michael Wilmington

Week Eight - 81 Days to Go
Inside Out

"I wish Oscar season could be 50 weeks a year!"

I won't name the person who actually said that out loud this week, but I wanted to drop to my knees and pray for him not to get his wish as soon as I heard it. But this person has made a very successful career out of the season. And the relentlessness of it is a turn-on for them. Alright.

The hard part, I find more and more, is that there is an inside game and an outside game and they conflict quite dramatically.

A reader, Sam, on The Hot Blog posted the following comment in a discussion of the National Board of Review:

"I totally don't understand the attitude that the worth of non-Oscar award shows begins and ends with their ability to predict Oscar.

NBR probably does suck, but if I didn't already think so, this Hot Blog post would not convince me of it. So some big Best Picture winners haven't made their top ten. SO WHAT? What's the point of awards shows that only serve to predict another awards show? What if the NBR just plain old, old-fashioned, wants to recognize something else??

From my perspective, the only point to a non-Oscar award show is if they DON'T try to be Oscar prognosticators. If it's about some group of people -- whether respectable or not -- legitimately selecting movies they genuinely care about, then the award means something and is honorable to some degree. If it's "hey, we want to recognize you for tracking well for this other award," then THAT is what I would argue makes it irrelevant.

You're not irrelevant just because you don't line up with Oscar.

Certainly if I were a recipient of an award, whether as prestigious as the Oscar or as ridiculed as the NBR, I would be honored if it genuinely reflected the love and enthusiasm of some group of people...and not so much honored if I simply happened to have the best odds for some future event.

It's confusing as heck to me, time and again, that other awards groups are criticized here, time and again, for being bad Oscar prognosticators. Criticize them for billing themselves as Oscar prognosticators, sure -- even if they are the rare awards body that *is* good at predicting the Oscars. But just the fact that they're different doesn't make them irrelevant or laughable."

Of course, on some levels, he is right. And on others, he is wrong.

When the purpose of a group's very existence is to feed off of the fever for an Oscar, derision and comparison are pretty much a requirement of an intellectual examination.

And when the participation of studios and talent is based almost exclusively on the potential influence on Academy voters, one must factor that into the discussion.

If the National Board of Review was not the annual first award of the season and if they didn't spread it around in order to sell more tables for their dinner and if the perception that they were an Oscar precursor didn't exist, very few people outside of the group would even know that NBR existed… and they would have as much chance of getting Clint Eastwood to show up at their dinner as the Des Moines Underground Film Festival.

On the flip side, people do feel genuinely honored when they win a scratch-off lottery ticket, much more so when they appear in front of a room of smiling faces, being paid tribute, and being feted by the media covering the event. Of course it is an honor to be nominated. And it is an even bigger honor to win… anything.

The seasonal cycle feeds on itself, becoming more and more monstrous each year. Traditional media has actually gotten better about at least adding a few disclaimers in stories about the various "pre-cursor" events. But when a group that has some real legitimacy, like BAFTA, keeps moving its awards dates to appear to be an Oscar influencer, something is much more broken than NBR getting some space on the newscycle in spite of their shady operations. (Rumor yesterday alleged that the leader of NBR has been sleeping with a major studio exec whose studio did quite well yesterday while two of that studio's major Oscar competitors were left without nominations.)

But again, it's an inside/outside thing.

How many people will ever know who won at BAFTA… or HFPA… or BFCA… or LAFCA… or NYFCC? Not as many who will know who won the Lakers/Heat game on Christmas Day. And how many people will know who won that game? Not as many as will know the Britney Spears forgot to wear her underwear. And how many will vote in the next Presidential election in this country? If you are in an elevator with two other people and you vote, you may well be the only one there who does.

For better or for worse, in America, it's the Super Bowl and the Oscars that compete with Thanksgiving and Christmas as annual national obsessions that tend to sweep in even those who are not all that obsessed or even interested. And the scores tend to be forgotten just as quickly… unless you are a fan of Heath Ledger or the Seattle Seahawks.

Every year, I get into the conversation about why, for instance, organizations of actual critics like LAFCA and NYFCC don't wait until after the first of the year to meet, discuss, and vote for their awards. The first reason, of course, is because they need to book the talent… uh, winners… for their awards dinner. If they waited until the first week of the year, it would be more difficult to get people to show. And even as it is, these groups generally need to strategize banquet dates to match when talent is on the right city to attend.

Digging down further, a few years back, there was "The Battle Of The Screener." And again, the argument of LAFCA and others was that screeners were necessary for the professional critics to see all the films that had to be seen. And my response was, "Move your dates a month later and you'll have plenty of time." But no one wanted to do anything like that and, as I argued, the convenience of screeners have become a bit of a crutch and a point of pride for groups.

Then there is the discussion about how awards are won in critics groups. BFCA, for instance, may have a less "important" roster of journalists than LAFCA or NYFCC. But the voting is individual. No group negotiation. One man. One vote. Add 'em up. But at the more respected critics groups, there is a lot of discussion, debate, and negotiation every year. And the winner is often a third or fourth or fifth choice of many of the critics involved. But strong dislike of a film can knock it out, even if there is enormous passion in its favor as well.

This year, in my perception, Babel and Little Children both have a wealth of lovers and haters. In that scenario, it is likely that something that both camps can agree on will step into the winning role, with award concessions in other categories to the other two films.

And let's not forget the trend in groups asserting their power by concurring on both coasts - Brokeback Mountain and Sideways the last two years - versus the long-standing tradition of showing strength by avoiding unanimity. For a long time, if L.A. went one way, you could be sure that N.Y. went somewhere else. And when they both went for Saving Private Ryan, it was an event… which made Shakespeare In Love's win even more of an event. I'm not saying that the members sit around a cauldron, carefully determining the strategic value of every winner. But it's funny how things seem to get into the water and trends simply evolve.

But at the end of the day, LAFCA votes and NYFCC votes and BFCA votes and HFPA votes and people read about the votes and media gets focused on some things more than others and it is distilled down to "winners" and "losers" for the public and, as often as not, for Academy members who are also just not that interested.

What is the right amount of weight for an "outsider" to put on any of this information? This is where it gets difficult for journalists. I have no idea whether someone screwed their way to a win. And it is incredibly unfair and insulting to the talent involved to suggest that this was how they won an award. But there are also other issues around this group. And still, it is "the first award of the season."

So how does one respond? The scandal of sex as a motive for an award could get traction. But do we really want to get focused on that? Do we really want to disrespect someone we respect? NBR will be forgotten next week… is it really worth the fuss?

Chicken.

Egg.

And yes, it's just a bunch of self-aggrandizing awards. But somewhere within miles of where you read this, someone is starving… someone is pregnant… someone is doing hard drugs… someone is dying. These are all more important than Oscars to the people involved. But not to you, because you don't know them… you are not a part of their lives. All politics are local.

The Charts
Best Picture
Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Screenplay
Best Director

Week Eight: The Season That Couldn't Shoot Straight
Week Six: Dreamgirls Wake
Week Five: Isn't It Romantic?
Week Four: The Rules - Episode One
Week Three: Channel #2
Week Two: Hope Floats
Week One: Ready, Steady ... Gold, Cat, Gold!
The August 11 Preview

- Email David Poland