Or How to Maintain One’s Self Respect When Things Start to Get Ugly…
The New York Film Festival opens next weekend, where Gone Girl, Inherent Vice and Birdman will be seen by regular festival-goers and critics. The first word on Gone Girl won’t be coming out of the NYFF, however, as it had with Social Network, Life of Pi and Hugo. The first word has come from critics already.
But let’s assume all three of these films are in the race from here on out. Where does the race go from here?
We are in the critics phase of the race, that is to say, films are offered up for the critics to review before they hit theaters. I have written a much longer piece about the changing face of film criticism which will be posted later but for our purposes now, critics do matter. A universal pan of a film can make the difference between Oscar nominations and better box office for films that don’t have a built-in opening weekend in their near future (like Interstellar, for instance).
The reason for this? Perception. The Oscar race is all about the right now. Time sorts out the rest. The critics set the tone and most of the time the industry follows suit. Not always, of course. Sometimes films can fly right on by the critics and hit with both audiences (The Blind Side, The Help) and industry voters (Extremely Loud, Incredibly Close). A good awards strategist will know if they have that kind of movie and they will invite high-powered celebrities to parties and have screenings for voters. The critics or bloggers will have virtually no impact on whether the film will succeed or fail.
After the critics review the films, they next conduct their own awards. First out of the gate are the New York Film Critics. They announce their winners with a live vote in early December, like December 4th. I don’t believe they have announced their date for this year. Right after they announce, the National Board of Review. Here it how our calendar looks about now.
In bold, the most influential.
Early December:
New York Film Critics
National Board of Review
December 1 – 15
Top ten reviews from TIME, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly
A hundred million top ten reviews come in
Movie City News charts those top tens
Washington DC Area Film Critics Announce first week of December
New York Film Critics Online Announce
Boston Film Critics
Los Angeles Film Critics
Online Film Critics
St. Louis
Detroit
AFI announces Top Ten American films of 2014
Screen Actors Guild nominations (12/10/14)
Golden Globe nominations (12/11/14)
Chicago Film Critics nominations
NY Times top ten lists
San Francisco Film Critics
December 16 – 31
Critics Choice nominations
London Film Critics
Southeastern Film Critics
December 29, 2014
Oscar nomination voting begins
January, 2015
Producers Guild nominations (ten Best Picture contenders) January 5, 2015
Oscar voting ends – January 8, 2015
Writers Guild nominations (Five Original, Five Adapted)
DGA deadline to vote January 12, 2015
DGA nominations (Five contenders) January 13, 2015
Oscar Nominations announced January 15, 2015
PGA Awards January 24, 2015
BAFTA nominations
Scripter nominations
Ace Eddie Award nominations
February 2015
DGA final ballot deadline – February 6, 2015
Oscar final voting begins – February 6, 2015
DGA awards – February 7, 2015
Oscar final voting ends – February 17, 2015
The Oscars February 22, 2015
Though we’re not yet into November, things are about to get very heated. The reason for this are all the movies that have not been seen that are still coming that could shake up the race significantly, and those are, for starters:
Interstellar
American Sniper
Unbroken
Fury
A Most Violent Year
Into the Woods
Selma
Between now and early December, or right on top of it, critics and bloggers will be invited to see these films long before the public gets the chance. They have to start screening them for guild voters, specifically the PGA, the DGA and SAG. Better if they can screen them for the New York Film Critics if possible, and the LA Film critics. With all of those people getting to see films no one else has seen, word starts to get out about whether they are good or not.
Hopefully that word is confined to whether it’s good or not as opposed to whether it’s an Oscar “contender” or not. Theoretically, good movies SHOULD be Oscar contenders. The better they are, the better their chances. Good reviews plus that elusive “buzz” can make the difference, but nobody knows anything until the films are put to the bigger voting bodies.
With Gravity, 12 Years a Slave and American Hustle dominating the critics awards last year, the latest entry, American Hustle, got hit with some last-minute bad buzz as more people saw it. Gravity and 12 Years had the advantage of already running the gauntlet early in Venice and Telluride, and then Toronto, before hitting the critics awards. American Hustle did not have that advantage, though its late entry probably helped it make a lot more money cashing in on awards buzz.
The New York Film critics surprised everyone when they picked American Hustle out of the gate and launched it headlong into the Oscar race — though, in fairness, Oscar bloggers had already been holding its place in line. It didn’t just come out of nowhere. No film really comes out of nowhere anymore. People always see it coming and project upon it the dreams of a hundred Oscar-watchers.
The Los Angeles Film Critics didn’t want to copy New York and they certainly didn’t want to pick the Best Picture frontrunner, 12 Years a Slave. They split their vote between Her and Gravity. The National Board of Review also picked Her.
The guilds followed in step with what the critics were doing, with Alfonso Cuaron dominating all of the awards for Best Director. 12 Years a Slave, heading into the race, was not the expected winner. The best in the business Steve Pond, Pete Hammond, Kris Tapley, Greg Ellwood all had Gravity to win Best Picture. But we holdouts knew, if given the choice, that the Academy would do the right thing and make history. Sure, they could have made history with Gravity, too, not just with Cuaron as the first Mexican director to win but to have a 3D space movie with only two actors win would have been unheard of.
I was standing in the press tent at the Spirit Awards explaining my theory to Steve Pond as to why I thought 12 Years was going to win. It was the In the Heat of the Night versus The Graduate theory. The industry and critics groups had mostly agreed upon a split — Mike Nichols would win Director and In the Heat of the Night would win Best Picture. It was such a solid comparison I knew it could not loose. But Steve Pond, like the rest of my colleagues, thought: she’s a crazy bitch. She wanted 12 Years a Slave to win too much so that it clouded her judgment. Well, how do you like me now?
No, no, only kidding. Choosing Gravity was the logical choice (Tapley still owes me $20). It was an exciting year to watch because there wasn’t one winner. There were many. It was a vibrant, alive Oscar race, the kind that don’t come around very often. That makes heading into this dreaded year all the more exciting. When you come off a good year, hope springs eternal.
Already, 2014 is shaping up to be an embarrassment of riches in the Best Picture category. Oscar season will likely ruin much of this afterglow because the truth is, films are art. And art doesn’t belong in a competition that pits teams against each other and requires campaigns. In the end it comes down to a consensus vote, what most people agree is the best of the year.
The numbers make the difference. The critics group with the largest voting body are the Critics Choice, with over 200 members. Compare that to:
PGA – 4,500
DGA – 14,500
SAG – 100,000
Oscar – 6,000
Because they vote at roughly the same time, you won’t find much variety in these larger consensus votes. But you will find your Oscar winner.