And The Oscar Goes To......

[Deleted]

Was the criticism in that e-mail all that bad? I know you shouldn't say anything negative, but that "slam" didn't seem all that bad. The producer was dumb to send off the e-mail, but I was expecting a really bad attack when I went to read the article about what he said. Then when I read it I was like "That's it?"

I guess I'd asssume that similar letters like that one had been written in the past during the campaigning process, where you compare the financial input of each film.

But I thought the e-mail would say that James Cameron's Avatar was a total piece of trash or something. Saying it cost a lot to make didn't sound that bad to me.

[Deleted]

I know, right? Seems to me as if Harvey should have been banned several times from the Oscars by now. I'm sure he's been up to much worse things. That e-mail wasn't as mean-spirited as I expected. Not sure what to think about this whole affair.

[Deleted]

Is it true that there will be a new scoring system for this year's Oscars? How does that affect each contendor's chances?

Also which is the largest voting bloc? Are they actors? Would that affect Avatar's chances since actors might not want to be replaced by technology?

[FiggyPudding]

That producer's email didn't seem like much of a slam to me, but on the other hand, it does seem childish. The studios are pimping out their movies enough already, do folks really need to send out silly emails stating the obvious? No matter who wins, both movies have been critically acclaimed, just get over it.

[divasahm]

The idea is that you can promote your own film to your heart's content, but not at the expense of the competition. Snarky, disparaging comments are not acceptable.

That said, I've not read any of the Weinstein correspondence through the years, but I can totally see him knocking the competition and getting away with it.

[angelaudie]

I don't think it's slamming Avatar that is getting him banned. It's that the Academy can prove that he's telling people to pressure Academy members to vote for THL which is against the rules. Also, that email is apparently one of several emails where he tells people to pressure members to vote for THL. Yeah, I'm sure he's not the first producer to pressure members of the Academy to do that but he was dumb enough to do it in such a way where it could be traced back to him.

I'm guessing the email ended up the inbox of one of the producers of one of the other nominated films. Hence, why this one actually was leaked. With 10 nominees I think the odds of the email ending up in a rival's inbox goes up quite a bit.

[Atreides]

Mar 3, 2010 18:51:56 GMT -4 @ds1 said:

Is it true that there will be a new scoring system for this year's Oscars? How does that affect each contendor's chances?

Also which is the largest voting bloc? Are they actors? Would that affect Avatar's chances since actors might not want to be replaced by technology?

The actors aren't being replaced by technology. Ask Sam Worthington or Zoe Saldana, who spent many months making this movie. I love Meryl Streep but she was seriously off when she compared the performances in Avatar to her voicework in Fantastic Mr. Fox.

I found an article outlining the new voting system. Here's the gist of it:

Here's how it works: Members of the academy will rank their selections, picking not just their favorite films, but second and third choices as well.

If no film takes more than 50 percent of the first-place votes, they just keep counting ballots. The movies with the least support get thrown out, one by one. Let's say A Serious Man is the first to go. Whatever movies Serious Man's supporters marked as their second-place pick now take its votes. The process continues until one film has a majority.

[huntergrayson]

Yes, actors are the biggest voting block, hence why ensemble films are so frequently nominated. People in a certain category nominate within that category (art directors nominate art directors, etc) then all the voters picks one winner per category except for Best Picture, where that ranking system is used.

That preferential system of voting until there is a majority has been used forever to determine the nominees but this is the first year it is being used to determine Best Picture.

I would say besides actors worrying about being replaced/overshadowed/made obsolete by technology, Avatar will probably be hurt more by the fact that many voters still tend to watch the films via screeners at home - so unless they issued huge plasmas and 3D glasses for all, something will be lost.

Per Today's Envelope, the voter bloc breakdown is as follows:
Actors - 1205
producers - 452
execs - 437
sound - 405
writers - 382
art directors - 374
public relations - 368
directors - 366
short films/feature animation - 340
visual effects - 279
music - 234
film editors - 221
cinematographers - 200
documentary - 151
makeup/hair stylist-118
For a total of 5,532 members.

[Deleted]

The actors aren't being replaced by technology. Ask Sam Worthington or Zoe Saldana, who spent many months making this movie.

Sorry, you're right. The actors don't get replaced -- I think what I meant to ask is if actors had a fear they may be overshadowed by the technology. I'm not sure if I'm articulating it properly, but just as some actors have a bias against looking a particular way in a movie because it makes them look "not good" I'm wondering if some actors might have a bias against technology obscuring their faces to the point that the actor becomes of less interest than the technology itself. I could see movies like Avatar threatening the idea of "the movie star" as something people gravitate towards if technology can effect the same escape that an actual human personality can (thereby affecting the salary of a movie star/actor itself). And I wondered if that kind of fear in the industry might affect Avatar's chances of winning.

Yes, I want to win the Oscar pool.
.

[huntergrayson]

And now the Hurt Locker is being sued by a dude who claims they based the story on him.

Reeks of Harvey's dirty campaigning. Seriously, the movie came out last June (and actually played some festivals in 08) - why sue now? Oh right, because it has Best Picture buzz. I also don't know why he thinks they have money to give him - despite the critical buzz, it's barely recouped it's budget.

Meanwhile, I'm totally a Nav'i, y'all and James Cameron owes me millions.