Movie lovers prepare for an award-season onslaught of boring acceptance speeches and gratuitous back-patting.
By: Elise Nakhnikian
It’s that time of year again. The Golden Globes were handed out on Jan. 25, and the Directors Guild of America are slotted for Feb. 7. Next come the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (Feb. 15), the Writers Guild of America (Feb. 21), the Screen Actors Guild (Feb. 22) and the Independent Spirit Awards (Feb. 28). And finally the Academy Awards, which will be given out on Leap Day.
It’s enough to bring out the Gollum in me: We loves awards, precious! No, we hates ’em!
If Hollywood is the land of the super-sized id, awards shows are Hollywood squared. Sit through any one of the televised ceremonies and post-awards interview shows and you’ll see some world-class acting out by adrenaline-crazed entertainers and the sycophants who cover them. Now, that’s entertainment. I’d gladly listen to any number of earnest thank-yous for the chance to see Jack Palance rip off a set of one-armed pushups after accepting his 1991 Supporting Actor Oscar, or to watch Pat O’Brien sexually assault Diane Keaton after she won a Best Actress Golden Globe this year.
OK, so I’m exaggerating about that last bit, but not by much. Picture Keaton, still high from her win, checking in at the Access Hollywood set. O’Brien lobs a couple of softballs her way, decides he just has to kiss her, and lunges onto the sofa beside her. She deflects his first move graciously, but he just keeps coming, trying to land one on her lips as she giggles gamely. Somewhere in there, we cross the line between playful and creepy.
Awards shows contain more pleasures than just gawking at bad behavior. Seeing someone whose work you admire accept an award can be surprisingly moving though I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that a professional entertainer performing for an audience of millions can send you groping for the Kleenex. Maybe they should create a new Oscar category, Best Acceptance, to honor achievement in this specialized art form.
So movie awards are good, yesss?
No, they are bad!
I’d have no quarrel with the Oscars if they just made moviemakers feel good and gave the rest of us another excuse for an office betting pool. But they’ve mucked up the way movies get released.
If a movie is going to be marketed as an Oscar candidate, it’s almost sure to open on one of the last few weekends of the year. Nominations for the Academy Awards used to be made in February, and everyone assumed that movies that were in theaters in December and January were likelier to be nominated than those from earlier in the year, which had begun to fade from memory.
The rush to release Oscar contenders at the tail end of the year explains why there are so many ambitious movies in theaters from Thanksgiving through the end of January or so, and so few for the rest of the year. It also explains why many good movies are kept under wraps for months after completion. Director Jim Sheridan’s In America, for instance, premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2002 and was originally slotted for a December 2002 release, but when its distributor decided not to put it in the running for that year’s Oscars it was held for an entire year, until late last November.
At least that’s how things worked until now. This year’s Oscar ceremony was pushed forward from late March to late February. Officially, the motive is to limit the time and money spent on lobbying and smear campaigns that, many people believe, are getting more acrimonious and more effective in manipulating the Academy’s voters, thanks in part to Miramax’s aggressive tactics. Unofficially, the show’s producers probably hope to improve Oscar’s sagging ratings by moving it closer to the other awards programs, which may have been sapping viewer interest by announcing their winners long before the Oscars were broadcast.
Because this year’s nominees were announced in late January, many distributors didn’t risk waiting until December to open their Oscar contenders. City of God, a gritty Brazilian drama that surprised even its director by nabbing four Oscar nominations, opened last January. Whale Rider, whose barely teenage star is the youngest woman ever nominated for Best Actress, opened in June. Pirates of the Caribbean, which nabbed five nominations including Johnny Depp’s for Best Actor, came out in July, and Lost in Translation, which has four nominations, was released in September.
Some studios plan to release candidates for next year’s awards even earlier, booking them into theaters this spring or summer and then centering a publicity campaign around their release on DVD in the peak of Oscar season. As a result, the annual crop of wannabe Oscar winners is likely to be spread out a lot more evenly from now on.
It’s too early to say whether moving the Oscars to February will help the Academy, but it’s clearly good news for us moviegoers.