comment #1

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

The Aviator was the frontrunner? I remember Million Dollar Baby being the solid leader that year, and if anything else had buzz, it was Sideways.

That said, I think if Dreamgirls is anything less than rapturously received, The Departed could easily replace it. Dreamgirls is Obama, the glossy possibility, The Departed is Hillary, the known quantity.

comment #2

Josh Massey says ...

"Rent" was the worst movie I've seen in years, and that's not hyperbole.

comment #3

Craig Kennedy says ...

I'm still waiting for some concrete evidence that the "chattering classes" (funny when columnists refer to this group as though they're not a part of it) have any influence on anyone besides other chatterers just like them. Show me one example where an Oscar voter changed his/her vote because of what was being said about a movie in the print or online media. Just one.

Is it possible that a majority of Oscar voters just didn't like Brokeback or Aviator or (yes Jeff) Munich all that much? Could it be that the chattering is essentially devoid of all meaning beyond the chattering itself? Talk about the cat chasing its own tail.

comment #4

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

CJKennedy, are you saying you want some evidence that the critics and reviews affect Oscar votes?

That's easy. Jessica Lange, Blue Sky. Nobody even heard of it, the LA Film Critics Association named her Best Actress out of the blue (so to speak), she won the Oscar.

comment #5

TJ Smoov says ...

Rent was awful right from the get go. My wife and I rented it, and I left in the middle of it to get my car back from the shop. As I signed off on $1,000.00 worth of auto repair, I thought to myself, "at least I'm not still watching Rent."

comment #6

Craig Kennedy says ...

Mgmax. The LA Film Critics Association isn't quite what I took Lumenick to mean as "the chattering classes". I'm not referring to critics, but media journalists and bloggers who talk about their opinions of the Oscar race. You know, people like Jeff.

comment #7

Craig Kennedy says ...

I admit it's unfair to imply Lumenick is himself a member of the chattering category when he's a bona fide critic. Although with his 4 star rating of Da Vinci Code, I wonder.

comment #8

PaulKolas says ...

All this Oscar forecast navel gazing is hilarious. Thanks to the internet, everyone is now an expert. Ya gotta love it. Just for the record, not that anyone would care, and certainly no one is going to remember any of this irrelevant blogmania nonsense after the Oscar telecast in March, the National Board of Review in 1961, a year which saw, among other films, West Side Story, The Hustler, and Jugdement at Nuremberg, bestowed its Best Picture honors on...drum roll please...Question 7. Does anyone remember Question 7? Has anyone seen it? Does anyone care? If the answer to all the above is "no", please press 1. I used to love the Academy Awards, but now I'm so jaded and so rarely impressed by films anymore, it really doesn't make much difference to me who wins Best Picture. The last time I felt even a twinge of excitement was in 2002, when The Piano made a run at Chicago. Where have all the Gone With The Winds, Lawrence of Arabias, Ben Hurs, Casablancas, Bridge on the River Kwais, All About Eves and On The Waterfronts gone? Or as I said in another post, the first 2 Godfather films? When Hollywood starts making movies that good again, movies with visceral feeling, character, compassion, and impeccable craftmanship, then maybe I'll give a damn again.

comment #9

VedaPierce says ...

RENT was so vapid and heavy-handed that immediately after seeing it I wanted to go out and vote Republican.

comment #10

Rich S. says ...

Well said, Paul. The studio system takes a lot of flack, but it sure produced some beautiful work, didn't it? Now the studios only want to produce pre-sold, assembly line stuff and the indies equate/confuse depression with profundity. What the hell happened?

comment #11

Colin says ...

Yeah, but Paul, "West Side Story" (which won the Oscar for Best Picture), "The Hustler," and "Jugdement at Nuremberg" were all in the NBR's top 10.

Sure, winning Best Picture at the NBR doesn't correlate very highly with winning the Best Picture Oscar. But, being in the NBR's top 10 does correlate very highly with winning the Best Picture Oscar.

In the last 20 years, 85% of the films to win the Best Picture Oscar were in the NBR's top 10. This is bad news for "Dreamgirls" and "The Queen," although I would say that this year is similar to 2001 and 2003 quality-wise, where the NBR didn't have "A Beautiful Mind" and "Return of the King" in their top 10.

comment #12

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

Well, given that the LA Critics' Association has much less stringent requirements for membership than, say, the New York group or National Society of Film Critics, I'm not sure the distinction between chattering classes and critics is all that firm, but thanks for the clarification. In any case, I think buzz does make some difference... some of the time. How's that for a firm position!

Paul Kolas-- hey, who knows, maybe Question 7 (which I believe is about an East German family trying to escape or something like that) is a forgotten masterpiece. There's a lot of interesting stuff on ten-best lists, down in the depths of the nominees, along with a lot of stuff that you can sure see why nobody watches THAT any more. It'd be boring if everybody rubber-stamped the exact same things (not that they don't, practically).

comment #13

Craig Kennedy says ...

The LA Critics' Association is credited by some with saving Terry Gilliam's Brazil back in the 80's so they're good for something in my opinion. They may be a pack of raving inbred douchebags for all I know but they stand for film advocacy and that's a far more interesting thing than opinions about whether Dreamgirls has what it takes to win an Oscar.

comment #14

bmcintire says ...

cjK: Clearly the Academy members DID like Brokeback, Aviator and Munich all that much, as they were nominated for best picture.

Colin: I would hope that the NBR is getting at least 85% of the eventual Best Picture Oscar winners in their top 10 each year, as they are throwing a twice-as-wide net as the Academy by choosing ten films, rather than five. Aside from the occasional one-off (see Question 7, above), the bigger surprise comes in what they leave out, not what they pick. I'm guessing most 10,000+ circulation newspaper critics are averaging about the same as the NBR's Oscar prognosis in choosing their top tens. By this point, its pretty apparent which dozen or so films are going to be considered the "favorite" of a large and generalized group such as the Academy. Winnowing it down to the five they will pick is plainly, statistically more difficult.

comment #15

Craig Kennedy says ...

bmcintire. Clearly the Academy committee that nominated those films liked them, but the voting body as a whole must not have to the same degree or they wouldn't have lost.

I'm assuming here that a smaller number of members choose the nominees which are then voted on by all the members. Is that even right?

comment #16

jeffmcm says ...

Rent made me realize what a vacuous decade the 1990s really were. A bunch of diseased hipsters in their 30s complaining about their lives for two hours. Get a job! Both The Producers and Phantom of the Opera will have longer shelf lives than this one.

comment #17

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

CJK: This is a pretty good piece (among many) on how Oscar voting works.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5235315

comment #18

Sean says ...

> I'm assuming here that a smaller number of members choose the nominees which are then voted on by all the members. Is that even right?

It is entirely wrong, assuming we're still talking about Best Picture.

> The Aviator was the frontrunner? I remember Million Dollar Baby being the solid leader that year, and if anything else had buzz, it was Sideways.

When the nominees were announced, if there was a front runner, it was 'The Aviator', but I remember there being no clear leader at the beginning, with the safe bet being "Well, probably The Aviator, but who knows?"

comment #19

Sean says ...

To clarify, all the members vote on Best Picture; to nominate something, specific members of the branch vote (for instance, all actors -- and only actors -- vote on who gets nominated for Best Actor, but then everybody votes on who wins).