Back in the early days of Oscar watching, the trades and the long lead film critics got to see movies early. There wasn’t a thumbs up, thumbs down for Oscar mentality back then. They weren’t looking at horses readying themselves for a race and making a judgment on whether the horse could go the distance or not. Now, so many people are given the opportunity to see movies early and not to the best effect. It used to be bad. It has gotten so much worse. Watching the folks I know worry about revealing what they’ve seen and what they know suggests, to me, that people are putting way too much faith in the Oscar blogger as the almighty oracle. It may be time once again to bring back the mantra “nobody knows anything.”
I don’t know what this brave new world is doing or has done for the health or state of films anymore. I’ve seen a lot of change in the past ten years — some of it good, some of it terrible. I don’t know that the movies have gotten any better but I do think criticism of them has gotten much more harsh, as if the very idea that they would be worthy of Oscar consideration immediately downgrades them. How could they ever live up to being the greatest film of the year? Whatever dreams we have in our heads about the movies, how can they not fall short? And when one comes along that transcends the nonsense it feels almost like a miracle.
The pressure cooker gets extremely tight as the year rolls around to the end, as publicists must wait for the online reaction long before it ever gets to the public. Not only that but they must balance the swollen egos of disgruntled journalists, critics or bloggers who feel they are getting the short shrift. Bloggers have also back down if they are being held to an embargo that doesn’t apply to film critics. Some do, some don’t. But the point seems lost in all of this. It’s the movies, stupid.
And so here we are, on the eve of Oscar season proper and the buzz online feels like a water cooler. Some amount of dignity gets lots in the process. I’m not excluding myself from this. I am hoping for something higher than this need to be FIRST. First isn’t always better, as we all know from losing our virginity. First isn’t better and it doesn’t make us better because we see things first. I am hoping that the snake stops eats its own tail before too long.
We don’t need to pull the trigger so quickly. If I learned anything from the guy whose name I forgot in a Venice loft many years ago, as the clock struck 2am — don’t rush the climax. Delaying things is far more preferable.
I beamed this out to Twitter and got this response moments ago from In Contention’s Guy Lodge, “Is that your way of saying that people who don’t love Invictus are ‘wrong’?”¬† And I answered that it wasn’t any one movie but all of them. This idea of somehow elevating those who have access is just silly. Trust no one. Slow and steady gives you much better climaxes wins the race.