Oscars vs. Blockbusters? No, It Isn't That Simple.
Monday, July 27, 2015 at 6:00PM Jurassic World just beat The Avengers box office tally to become the third highest grosser of all time (when you don't adjust for inflation) which has Awards Daily wringing its hands over what the Academy should do to better honor the types of films people pay to see. As you may have guessed The Film Experience has strong feelings about this topic (including suggested new Oscar categories) all of which we will share with you right now...
One suggestion that's been floated before is two effects categories, rather than just one. That'd be "special effects" -- i.e. on set, mechanical or "practical" effects split off from "visual effects" which is the green screen and off set work like computer generated imagery. Currently 'special' effects are eligible for the standard 'visual' effects prize but are rarely nominated. I'm not sure we need that distinction as worthy efforts in special effects are increasingly augmented by visual effects but I would be in favor of demanding a full 5 slot category for Makeup and Hair (it should already be the same number of nominees as other categories since every film uses that department). I'd also add Best Stunts as a worthy new category if we're expanding the craft categories in such a way that would be bound to honor more blockbusters. But that's as far as TFE is willing to take this line of thought in endorsing new categories. Add a "Best Blockbuster" and you've basically become The People's Choice or look as desperate as the BFCA did when they started acting "Best Action" categories. All respect for your institution will die!
See, we've heard this argument countless times and in fact we discussed this in short just a week or so ago when Ghost had its 25th anniversary and we wondered which Blockbuster Best Pic nominee was your favorite. I know this is an unpopular opinion in the internet age of "lambast the Oscars at every turn because they're 'out of touch''' I think AMPAS does a pretty good job of honoring the right blockbusters already. When they do honor juggernauts that everyone sees it's usually because the films are widely regarded as very very very good (I don't care how much anyone whines about it, EIGHT nominations for The Dark Knight is honoring it in a big way) or work in some inarguable way even if they don't scream "classy!" (Ghost, Fatal Attraction, The Sixth Sense). I fail to see how Jurassic World qualifies on either front so I hope they do ignore it. People don't even agree that its visual effects are worthy (and when you can't surpass a film made 22 years ago in that department...) so why give it nominations?
If we really want the Academy to honor films that make money that are from non "Oscar-style" genres, than we should all be fighting for Mad Max Fury Road -- which has absolutely stunning craft work and is not in anyway coasting on the nostalgia of earlier superior films - not Jurassic World, which only has a stunning gross to recommend it.
If you wanted genre movies honored, fight for QUALITY not who made $$$
Frankly, the larger problem with Oscar is not that they ignore films that make a ton of money sometimes. The problem is that they have such large genre biases that they don't always notice the high quality efforts within the more frequently money-making genres (action/sci-fi/fantasy/horror, etc...). And if they started honoring films just because they made money, they wouldn't even catch the highest quality efforts in those categories either, is what I'm saying. Horror and Sci-Fi offer perfect examples. If you equate box office with quality you run into huge problems in the audience-friendly genres too; The Babadook and A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night and maybe Ex-Machina this year, would still be ignored by the Oscars under this line of thinking and absolute shit movies would be forced to carry the "Best" tags for their genre in their places even though they aren't remotely Great Movies.
There's a reason people still care about the Oscars and it's precisely because they do have standards... however misguided and contradictory those standards are from time to time / film to film. If what people really wanted from the Oscars was the rewarding of box office, then the Blockbuster Awards (remember those?) or The People's Choice Award (yeesh) would be what people obsessed over each year and could never let go of.
They aren't.
Reader Comments (28)
I know it's forbidden in Hollywood to say it, but all the technical and music awards should be given out in a separate ceremony and the winners quickly summarized during the broadcast. For the live broadcast, they should only focus on best picture, best director, best screenplay (original/adapted), best foreign film, and the four acting categories (giving out a total of 9 awards on live television). They can also announce audience favorite film of the year based on a scientific poll, but not give it an Oscar (the winner can get a special plaque). That would cut the ceremony down to 90 minutes max.
Tom Ford: Oooh. I questioned you a little when we talked about superheroes (still think it's kind of bizarre to not see how large the aesthetic difference actually is between Man of Steel and Iron Man, but whatevs), but that MIGHT actually work.
You nailed it Nathaniel. I'm perfectly fine with the way the Oscars are now. The expanded Best Picture race is dumb, but that was done to bring in more movies like District 9, Up, Toy Story 3 and Inception that probably wouldn't have made it with just five nominees. I definitely don't want to be adding extra categories now too. I also don't want to shorten the ceremony by any means. It's too big a night in my life to run under three hours.
It's so disappointing when I hear the argument they should move the "boring" awards (technical/documentary) to another ceremony. I do think they should make a bigger effort to expose us to the short live action/animated movies. but damn it I want those hard working directors (and the sound guys, etc) to have their less than one minute moment on the stage. Maybe if they had a special 30 minute/hour long special before the broadcast to explain why some of the lesser known category nominees deserved their nominations, it would help with the show overall. They'd explain that movies like Jurassic World had state of the visual and sound effects and actually interview those behind the scene talents.
Agree that Oscars will be irrelevant by 2029. They had a good run but TV talk show host Ellen handing out pizza and taking selfies was a sign of the apocalypse. Oscars definitely help smaller films but if they are watched on an iPhone, does Oscar even matter anymore in terms of artistic merit? Bring on the 3D porn.
Tom Ford, why foreign film and not documentary?
Also, no, they shouldn't. I could maybe abide the short film awards being given out separately, but I wouldn't guarantee it.
You want people to see more oscar movies? That's easy. But calling Jurassic World an oscar worthy movie ruins the words "Oscar" and "worthy."
I've (mostly) made peace with the fact that any genre film/blockbuster I like won't make it out of the technical categories, so I'm okay with the system. I love the expanded Best Picture race, though, and I'm with Sean in that I don't want any categories pushed out of the main broadcast to make it shorter.
Tom Ford: But maybe, instead, I'd suggest the Academy send a poll to critics with two questions "1. What genre film that's not nominated for Best Picture, of any popularity level, would you have suggested we nominate if you thought we had no bias against genre? 2. What obtuse and artistic film that's not nominated for Best Picture would you suggest we nominate if you thought we had no bias against obtuse and artistic fare?" And then put the ones for each category with the most mentions on the suggested plaques and hand them out on Oscar night.
In my life-time, I'd imagine:
1990: Total Recall for genre and Jacob's Ladder for art
1991: T2 for genre & Delicatessen for art
1992: Reservoir Dogs or Last of the Mohicans for genre, Man Bites Dog for art
1993: True Romance or Carlito's Way for genre, Farewell my Concubine for art
1994: The Last Seduction (As a consolation due to the total disqualification) for genre, Chungking Express for art
1995: HEAT for genre, The Addiction for art (yeah, I know it's also about vampires, but I think a tangent for quoting Burroughs throws it into the latter camp)
1996: Scream for genre, Breaking the Waves for art
1997: Men in Black for genre, Taste of Cherry for art
1998: Out of Sight for genre, Run Lola Run for art
1999: South Park: BLU for genre, Being John Malkovich for art
2000: Snatch for genre, Songs from the Second Floor for art
2001: Amelie for genre, Donnie Darko for art (again, another strange and obtuse genre film)
2002: 28 Days Later or The Bourne Identity for genre, Russian Ark for art
2003: School of Rock for genre, The Return for art
2004: Shaun of the Dead for genre, Eternal Sunshine/Before Sunset for art
2005: Oldboy for genre, Cache for art
2006: Pan's Labyrinth for genre, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu for art
2007: Hot Fuzz for genre, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days for art
2008: The Dark Knight for genre, The Fall for art
2009: Coraline for genre, Fish Tank for art
2010: Animal Kingdom for genre, Blue Valentine for art
2011: Drive for genre, Melancholia for art
2012: Looper for genre, Robot and Frank for art
2013: The World's End for genre, Short Term 12 for art
2014: Captain America: The Winter Soldier or Guardians of the Galaxy for genre, Under the Skin for art
Meh, I don't see any correlation between blockbusters and Oscar except (if appropriate) best special effects, best sound, etc. Making the most money often has an inverse relation to lasting value. The Academy knows that it will always have difficulty reaching a mass audience unless several big stars or a movie like Titanic or Avatar are nominated for multiple awards. And the show is often long and boring no matter what is up in a particular year. If anything, the Oscars are now known as a hard show to produce and an even harder one to get good ratings for. And the same parade of Travolta, Kidman, Kate Hudson, JLo, etc. as presenters - whether they had a good movie out or not - gives the show an old, repetitive feel. I second cutting it in half and having a separate on-demand show about technical aspects or categories where no one has likely seen the film (best animated short, etc.).
Even if they do honor blockbusters, i.e Transformers for its visual effects, which is really quite good, I would still find it tacky as hell. A sign of apocalypse indeed.
The Dark Knight is a once in a blue moon occurence, but the fact that it still didn't get a Best Picture nomination is telling enough of how the Oscars work.
I'm with Sean too. I never get why people focus on the Oscars as a "show", as if the awards themselves exist to serve the demands of a TV programme. It's the other way round: the Oscars are the winners/nominees, and the show is there to honour them. To those who want certain awards moved out of the main programme, I ask: would you still feel that if you (or your friend/family member) were nominated for, say, Best Sound Mixing, or Best Live Action Short? I say keep the show as it is, but just make improvements (the obvious improvements, which we discuss here every year - e.g. less time devoted to montages and unnecessary presenter patter, more time to nominee clips and speeches, and a funny presenter who's an industry insider with outsider appeal.
Re: blockbusters, I'm with Nathaniel: the Academy could do with opening its eyes a bit more widely to quality genre work but other than that (and a five-nominee Make Up and Hair category) they should leave the awards categories as they are.
"Best shitty blockbuster. And the Oscar goes to ..."
Yes to everything Nathaniel said. This topic is why I had to quit reading Awards Daily-Sasha writes this article every. single. year. and she keeps advocating for lesser and lesser films with the argument (I am confident Jurassic World will make my worst films of the year list, and I'm hoping for a Razzie, not an Oscar). Advocating it winning an Oscar is like advocating for The Phantom Menace to have an Oscar.
Bring the Makeup nominees to five=great, should have happened years ago. Honoring Stunts in some fashion=swell. But Best Blockbuster, Best Cast, Best Use of a Bryce Dallas Howard in a Supporting Role-no, we don't need more categories. The reality is that the Oscars need to embrace their tradition and history and not constantly try to evolve and change. I frequently say look at the Olympics, look at the Super Bowl which are consistently the same with only very minor tweaks over time-the Oscars are an event. OWN THAT. Don't try and be 90 minutes long (really-cutting categories has created SO many great moments when we moved the Honorary Awards away, so why not just do the same to any category without a movie star?), don't try to be a series of musical numbers that the Tony Awards wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole they're so blase-be the Oscars. Celebrate the cinema. You can still mention the nominated blockbusters (Jurassic World will still be more than fodder for the host), but be classic, not new. Because inauthenticity is the easiest way to alienate any audience.
I love the Oscars, and I am just going to say it-anyone who would insist the ceremony celebrate mediocrity to "fit in" clearly doesn't.
I don't really have anything to add regarding Oscars and blockbusters, but I just had to chime in regarding some people wanting to shorten the Oscars. Um, no. It could last a whole 24 hours to honor the entire film year and I would still love it. It's not the length of the show that's the problem.
I still think Oscars are bloated because of commercials, musical numbers and tributes or montages that just pad out more time for commercials. You honor JW by having Chris Pratt present with a velociraptor. Done. You keep it short by getting rid of commercials and having Meryl Fucking Streep host the show and her telling people we only have two hours, so please people: be gracious, funny and brief.
Hair and Makeup seem the branch most likely to nominate good craft in a poor film. If there were 5 nominations, do you think there would be more Norbit-type nominations?
Very well said, Nathaniel. My only reservation about a Best Stunts award, however, is that most Academy members may not have the ability to identify and evaluate stunt work on screen. Of course, that goes for most of existing technical categories too, but stunt work is a craft largely distinguished by what you don't see — however clueless a voter may be about, say, sound editing, it's the finished presentation within the film that s/he's being invited to judge.
I fear they'd just default to voting for the most prominent or prestigious action film in the category, whether it had remarkable stunt work or not. (The SAG award for Outstanding Stunt Ensemble has already gone down this road to some extent.)
what kind of cruel world are we living in when a bazillion dollars isn't rewarded with gold statues?!?
Yes to everything Nathaniel said.
Mad Max deserves nominations for Directing & Editing.
The best way to make the Oscars engaging: MORE CLIPS. A shit ton more clips from the movie where you're practically showing the whole movie.
And woof at that Tom Ford suggestion. ::Marcia Brady "cut my hair?!?!" voice:: Make it shorter?
The world is cruel, like the poor woman who sang "Waiting for Tonight" for Jennifer Lopez but did not get any credit on the album (listen to it again, Jennifer Lopez's real voice is not that good). I will announce her name when I find out who it is. I also heard that after "Mother's Day," Garry Marshall is making a movie with Travolta, Kidman, Kate Hudson and JLo in Orlando called "Unpaid Leave."
I wonder what would happen if people investigated this issue from the opposite end. In other words, stop asking why the Academy has stopped nominating the movies people are going to see, and start asking why people aren't going to see the movies the Academy is nominating.
I was randomly watching an old Siskel & Ebert clip about their Oscar choices just the other day, and I was struck when Ebert mentioned that the highest-grossing film of the year usually got nominated. This was 1989 (and he was bringing this point up to state that he thought that year would be a break from that tradition). There was a point in time when the highest grossing movies of the year generally got at least some attention from the Academy. Obviously that's usually not the case anymore, but is it that the Academy changed, or is the moviegoing public that has changed?
I bet if there were a way to tell which movies were being watched the most via on-demand services, Netflix, etc. (and maybe there is, for all I know), a lot of the more Academy-type movies would be up there. People aren't going to see those movies in the theaters anymore, though. That's the problem. The movies making big box office tend to be big franchise movies (with exceptions, of course).
I have suggested in the past that different movies come with different ticket prices at theaters, although I do realize there are pitfalls in that argument. Still, if you're going to pay $12 per ticket to see a movie, and you notice that it costs the same to see a a big-screen spectacle like Jurassic World as it does to see an intimate drama or a little indie movie, I think a lot of people's mentality is that it's probably better to just wait for the drama to be released on-demand for home viewing, and pay the money to see the movie that will probably only ever be fun in a theater environment. But again, I realize it's probably not feasible to reduce the ticket prices of selected movies while keeping them the same for others.
Still, my point is that I don't necessarily think the Academy is out of touch. I now know a lot of quote-unquote "regular" people who have seen Boyhood via on-demand services or streaming. They were interested in seeing it all along, but they weren't about to shelve out $12 per person to see it in the theater when they could just wait a few months and pay $5 total to watch it at home. I think it's not that people don't want to see the movies the Academy is nominating; it's that they're not rushing out to the theaters to see them.
Box office gross is becoming an outdated way of gauging a movie's popularity, and I think it's time people acknowledge that before just dismissing the Academy as out of touch.
Jurassic World is the third-highest grossing movie of all time? How utterly depressing.
This is why we continuously have such a glut of disposable template crap in the theaters. People keep buying tickets for this shit.
Box Office is only a barometer of how many people saw a movie. NOT how many people actually liked it or thought it was good.
When the Academy is giving big nominations (including best picture) to Gravity, Django Unchained, Les Miserable,Toy Story 3, Inception and Black Swan - as they have in the past 5 years - I struggle to see where there's a genuine problem. 2011 and 2014 were notable because the Academy went for a relatively narrow range of largely uncommercial films, and there's always a lot of hand wringing when that happens, but come on. Home Alone was the 4th highest grossing movie of all time after its theatrical run - I don't recall much hand wringing about how to better honor juvenile kids movies back then. It's the same thing then as now. Jurassic World has its fans and detractor - I think what everyone would agree upon is that it does not represent the pinnacle of the art form. Its popularity doesn't change that, nor should it. Honoring worthy popular movies isn't the same as being obliged to honor the *most* popular movie.
Great piece. I agree that the oscars do a pretty good job of honoring the right blockbusters; honoring moneymakers simply because they'd moneymakers is incredibly short-sighted. And really, when you include inflation into the money factoring, even today's "huge blockbusters" are just not anywhere near as big a deal as the megahits of the past, like Gone with the Wind, Sound of Music, Star Wars, Jaws, ET, or even Titanic. To compete with those and get into the top 25 or so on the all time list, films kind of have to be Avatar-level phenoms, and those films are usually great and are usually nominated.
In fact, the real injustices in the ceremony rarely punish moneymakers. Titanic did win. Avatar was nominated. Dark Knight got 8 noms. The big animated Pixar hits routinely win oscars and get multiple nominations. The fact that Jurassic World and Avengers 2 are even in the discussion for lots of noms seems to be reward enough. General genre bias and calendar bias are far worse problems. It Follows, Ex Machina, and Mad Max: Fury Road would be great genre-bias-busters, but none were giant moneymakers, and their early release dates pose further problems for them...
I could certainly get behind "best stunts/choreography", an expanded makeup/hair category, and "best ensemble cast".
"Box Office is only a barometer of how many people saw a movie. NOT how many people actually liked it or thought it was good."
Ain't that the truth!
I agree with everything said in this post. Definitely time to bring the make-up category up to five now that they've officially added hairstyling. Who cares if it's more NORBIT nominees if they actually have good make-up. That's what can make those categories so interesting. Yes to a stunt direction category, I say. Maybe even have that at three nominees?
NO to cutting the categories out of the main show. That only seeks to dumb the show down even more and the audience, too. The Academy Awards are, essentially, a fundraiser for The Academy. If they get rid of the technical/craft categories it's all but saying the movies are only celebrities. They're not. Costume designers, art directors, documentarians so forth deserve the attention. TBH the short categories have always struck me as the outliers of the Oscars, but even then it's nice to know that they have and still do have a tradition that's being upheld.
Edwin, you make an astute point about tier-ing ticket prices based on film budgets, reminiscent of the types of conversations I've had with theatre colleagues regarding costs for play admission versus those for musicals. I've proffered that shelling out some absurd amount for a spectacle that involves more resources and effort to mount is something I'm more willing to do than for something smaller and more intimate, especially on a Broadway level. It may not be a fair argument, but it is a valid one.
As for the matter at hand, I think people need to realize the difference between a high-quality film that may not be necessarily entertaining and an entertaining one that may not be good. Just because one finds Jurassic World enjoyable to watch (I didn't) doesn't mean it's worth of Oscar consideration.