#072 - I Would Like to Shank the Academy...

Regarding Grantland's piece on the Academy Awards' biggest travesties:

Here is a link to the bracket: http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/307422_415872745167241_1128977251_n.jpg

Here is a link to the author's write up on the methodology: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8942448/tournament-determine-worst-academy-award-moment-modern-history

Go ahead, peruse it a bit. Unfortunately there isn't a great amount of information tagged with each entry, and some of the entry names have been oversimplified a bit. Some of the entries are all-time Oscar robberies, the ones everyone brings up every year in regards to snubs and miscalculations on the part of the Academy. For one thing, I will say it is a rather difficult task to pin down the reasoning behind some of the surprise winners. They're picked from an assortment of ballots, and the "scoring" (if you will) of the ballots is rather complicated. Here is a rather detailed article on how the nomination process works. It's not as if there's one group of people colluding together to get some movie shut out, which is the way people tend to view Ben Affleck's snub for directing Argo this year. So his victory for Best Director at the Golden Globes was a real f-you to the Academy, right? They didn't even nominate him. Well who the hell is the Academy? And is their shame even justified? Based on reading what I've read, essentially the Oscars voting boiled down to picking the films that the largest number of people thought was the best of the year (in whichever category they were voting). It's a different system than most people would think. If Ben Affleck showed up on all 300 (I'm making that number up) ballots for Best Director, surely he should be nominated, right? But what if he showed up in the third slot on EVERY ballot? And the first two slots were filled with a collection of other, talented, and in some way deserving directors. According to what I've read, it's entirely possible he wouldn't be nominated.

Imagine this process was applied to voting for the President. Of course, in our political system, it usually boils down to two main candidates, and selecting a winner is much easier. But what if there were 6 candidates? And you had to rank them? Say five of them split the "Number 1" spot equally across everyone's ballot, but in the "Number 2" spot, EVERY SINGLE PERSON had the same candidate? Well, it stands to reason that we'd all be fairly happy if that person won and became President, right? Not our first pick, but pretty damned close. Well, in the Oscars format, that person wouldn't even be nominated. And now we'd have to vote between five qualified nominees, only one of which anyone preferred to the aforementioned disqualified runner-up. The elected "winner" could only receive 22% of the vote and win by a slim margin, but everyone else is instantly deemed losers. And even further adding to the Oscars analogy, if only a couple thousand people with much different interests than you and I have were the ones who voted, it's very likely that a huge portion of the population would be in outrage over the selection. (On second thought, maybe our Presidential Election does mirror the Oscars.)

Now, put yourself in the shoes of an Academy voter. Theoretically, you can only vote for movies you have seen. Perhaps you haven't seen some of the ones that the public thinks are the best movies, maybe because you preferred to see other films instead, or the topic didn't interest you, or you're a human being and only have so much time. Additionally, perhaps you are one of these working Hollywood producers who makes up the Academy, and your close circle of friends worked on a film that is being considered for for the Oscars. Naturally, you'll want to support your friends and their work, especially if it is deserving OR underappreciated. Think about that one. Say you get your ballot and you think to yourself, "Oh, gosh, of course everyone is going to nominate The Dark Knight, think of how many people saw that film and worked on it. Even though I loved it, I'm going to nominate a small art house project and hope it can get some love." I'm not saying that's exactly how it works, but you could see where that's possible, right?

Ultimately, there's no perfect way to do it. But once you understand how the process works, and how in the end the winners could be selected by members of the Academy with varied levels of interest and association with the films in question, you get a better view of what a "snub" really is.

So let's take a look now at some of the incidents that have occurred in my lifetime that I consider to be Great Oscar Upsets. Certainly there were ones that happened well before I was watching, but it's hard for me to comment on those because I'm not sure what the public mindset was like at the time, or how different the Academy Awards were back then. (Some of these were pulled directly from the Grantland bracket.)

-- Crash Wins Best Picture (2006)

Yeah, it was kind of a joke that Crash won. At least it seems that way now. But at the time, remember Paul Haggis was a Hollywood golden boy, fresh off his deserving win for writing Million Dollar Baby. And the cast was large and diverse, perhaps creating a lot of connections in the voting class. Personally, the true winner that year should have been obvious. Brokeback Mountain was fantastic, and Ang Lee even won Best Director for the film (perhaps proving that directors are more progressive than the majority of film crew members and producers). However, it's not hard to see that the topic, and the all-too-easy tagline of "Gay Cowboy Movie" probably scared some voters away. The other contenders? Capote, Good Night and Good Luck, and Munich. Again, Capote featured a gay lead character (who was voted Best Actor--actors are of course more progressive). Good Night and Good Luck, unfortunately, just wasn't that good. And Munich was a fairly taut thriller not too different from this year's Argo, except it didn't involve a good American payoff.

-- Heath Ledger Loses Best Actor (2006)

Crash won Best Picture but was not the best picture of the year. Most people know that, and Crash's longtime reputation has suffered because of it. Instead of being simply a decent movie with a melodramatic throughline, it will forever be known as the horrible Oscar winner. The interesting "snub" from this year that I feel like should be mentioned more is Philip Seymour Hoffman's win over Heath Ledger for Best Actor. I think Hoffman was fantastic. It's not that he wasn't. He transformed himself into Truman Capote, and I know that critics and the Academy alike fall for that kind of thing (Jamie Foxx in Ray, Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln), but there's no rule that says playing an original character is easier than a historical figure. Especially not one with such depth and complexity as Ledger's. The true snub of the year.

-- Shakespeare in Love Wins Best Picture (1999)

There's no defense for Shakespeare in Love. It was the original Crash. Or maybe Rocky was the original Crash. But most people refer to this one as Harvey Weinstein's big win. The guy doesn't get where he got without being able to wield some sway. And maybe that's what happened here. Or maybe they were too tired of Spielberg and Tom Hanks being so weighty and serious all the time. That's my main theory, otherwise, how could anyone explain the logic behind making The Terminal? In most history books, good people have crossed out Shakespeare in Love and just filled it with Saving Private Ryan. The ten-year test holds with that one. Nobody cares about Shakespeare in Love anymore, except for the fact that it's a huge underdog winner. That's the lasting legacy of the film -- that it proves you can win over the voters with an aggressive campaign, and that maybe people don't like to just vote for a movie because everyone THINKS they're going to vote for it.

-- Samuel L. Jackson Doesn't Win for Pulp Fiction (1995)

This is a case where actors voting on the award probably significantly skews the result from what the general public would pick. Just because a character and performance is highly enjoyable and people still quote it to this day doesn't necessarily mean the acting was award-worthy. In this case, I would say Jackson was probably award-WORTHY, but I don't find this to be the huge crime that they are saying it is. Though, as a caveat, I've never seen Ed Wood, so I can't comment on Martin Landau's victory. However, Gary Sinise was damned good as Lieutenant Dan. You just can't watch a movie with him today and not think to yourself, "That's Lieutenant Dan."

-- The Dark Knight Snubbed for Best Picture Nomination (2009)

I will direct you here: Top 200 (25-1). That's probably about as much as you'd need to know about this. But, for fun, let's take a look at the nominees from this year: Slumdog Millionaire (winner), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, The Reader, and Milk. How many of these films still move the needle? Any of them? Milk was quite good and represented a shift in public perception to gay characters (Sean Penn won Best Actor, again playing a public historical figure of whom we have video evidence). Button is by now considered a complete flop and a misstep for a personal favorite of mine (David Fincher) who returned strong with The Social Network. Slumdog was very good when I first saw it, and I still enjoy watching it, but won largely on a movement of promoting Indian culture, and repeat viewings years later makes it seem a bit garish. You can't really say exploitative though--Danny Boyle, to his credit, used a significant number of local actors and production assistants to capture his vision. I have no problems with its nomination. But at the time I didn't think it measured to The Dark Knight, and it still doesn't to this day. I'm quite certain that the movie was instantly dismissed due to its association with Batman. However, take away the cape. There was minimal CGI in this film. There was no cartoonishness. There were no aliens, no super powers. What is so "comic book" about it? If you take away the Batman logo, this movie is one of the great detective/crime thrillers of our generation. Look who is involved: Christopher Nolan, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Heath Ledger, Gary Oldman. These are pro's pros, not people interested in popcorn sales. Some credit the film with opening the Academy's limit on Best Picture nominations from 5 to 10, but in reality, that's a money-making move and not one intended to credit more filmmakers. As has been mentioned elsewhere, having more Best Picture Nominees just gives more studios the ability to plaster "BEST PICTURE (Nominee)" across the tops of their DVD cases and television advertisements. Still, as is the case with many of the other "snubs" on this list, The Dark Knight is winning the battle of longevity, both as a popular movie that is making tons of money and as a critical success that even viewers outside of the comic fanboy clique have grown to appreciate.

-- The Wrestler Snubs (2009)

Continuing the thought from above, if we could go back and re-do the nominations, I'd wager that The Reader, Frost/Nixon, and Button would be out, replaced with some combination of The Dark Knight, Doubt, Wall-E, and another film that I think was snubbed from even the mentions of the snubs: The Wrestler. The Wrestler is a great movie, one that didn't necessarily have any hype machine behind it, other than Mickey Rourke's terrific performance and the discussion over Bruce Springsteen's closing credits song. It's a shame, to me, that Rourke didn't end up with the Oscar. He did win the Golden Globe, and given the opportunity, effusively thanked his friend and mentor Sean Penn, whom he was selected over. While Penn deserves credit for stretching his comfort zone and perhaps Rourke was too encapsulated in his own, but upon watching both films, I was struck by the emotion that Penn was fantastic acting AS Harvey Milk, and Mickey Rourke simply WAS "The Ram". Again, this is a case of Penn not doing anything substandard or being a poor selection, just my feeling that Mickey Rourke OWNED his film and was deserving of the award.

-- City of God Not Nominated for Best Foreign Film (2003)

Once again, I'll direct your attention here: Top 200 (25-1). I haven't thought of this so much as a snub, largely because the Best Foreign Film category is usually an inaccurate representation of what films were true international masterpieces. I'm not even totally sure how they are selected / promoted, and if this wasn't already a beast of an entry, I might look into it. But this is just silly. I wager there are not many people who have seen City of God and come out of it thinking anything less than, "Wow." It represents everything that I think filmmaking should strive toward, and yet it comes from the most humble and scraped together beginnings. Hardly any of the actors are professionals, and the scenery, props, clothing, and characters were culled from the real lives of the people involved in the production. The film highlights something that I've felt is true about making realistic movies for a while -- one of the key features of seeing a movie is wanting to get lost in the story, wanting to believe what you're seeing is real, or could be real. But it is exceedingly difficult to see a Will Smith movie and not think, "That's Will Smith." Or Julia Roberts. Or George Clooney. You recognize their faces over and over again, regardless of how well they perform, and it's difficult to not understand you're watching a production. For many viewers, City of God is something completely different. I have noticed Alice Braga's face in the years since, as she has built herself a tidy career in American films. But I will admit, despite this being one of my all time favorite films, I had to look up the name of the actor who played Rocket just now (Alexandre Rodrigues). For the most part, you look at these faces and can only think of the characters they portrayed. I understand films in America is a business, and to sell tickets you need big names. But it's surprising that you don't see more experimental filmmakers casting unknowns to add a level of realism to their stories.

Getting back to the Oscars, I will say I have never heard of the 2003 Best Foreign Language Film, Nowhere In Africa. I do see that the fantastic Jet Li film Hero was nominated, but lost, despite being one of the most jaw-droppingly beautiful films I have seen in my life, as well as a great story. Shows that there are great upsets even for foreign films.