THE NOMINEES' PREPARED STATEMENTS ARE SO BORING THAT... ZZZZZZZZZ
The nominee reaction statements are so boring, it’s becoming almost irresponsible. Everyone is deeply humbled. Everyone wants to thank the Academy for believing in him. Everyone thinks that it’s just an honor to be nominated. That’s not what the Three6 Mafia would have said.
Reading their prepared statements, I learned that Morgan Freeman wanted to “thank the Academy for this honor”. Vera Farmiga felt the same way stating, “I am… truly grateful to the Academy for their support.” So was John Lasseter, CEO of Pixar who issued the statement that he was “incredibly proud that ‘Up’ has been nominated by the Academy.” And the Coen brothers, who stated, “We… would like to thank the Academy.” And Christopher Plummer, “I’m absolutely delighted that… I have… been nominated by the Academy.”
Meryl Streep, Anna Kendrick and Quentin Tarantino all thanked the other nominees. Stated Streep, “I am proud and grateful to stand with these women who have given such a range of beautiful indelible performances.” Stated Kendrick, “I am thrilled… to be nominated with these talented and inspiring women.” Stated Tarantino, “I’d like to congratulate all the other nominees in the directing and writing categories. I’m proud to be in their company.”**
** I find it interesting that Tarantino singled out two categories of nominees instead of saying 'I'd like to congratulate all the other nominees. I'm proud to be in their company.' Does this mean that he’s NOT proud to be in the company of Helen Mirren?
Penelope Cruz called her director, Rob Marshall, a ‘genius’, Farmiga thanked her director, Jason Reitman and Freeman was ‘especially grateful’ to his director, Clint Eastwood.
The most boring statement of all came from Wes Anderson. It read: "I am very honored to have received an Oscar nomination for 'Fantastic Mr. Fox.' Roald Dahl's classic story has been one of my favorite books since I first learned to read, and it was an amazing experience to work with my many, many very skilled collaborators and bring it to life as a stop-motion film! I would like to congratulate Alexandre Desplat, who wrote our wonderful score, for his nomination as well."
Sigh.
The only nominee who really showed any signs of life or humanity was Precious’ director, Lee Daniels. Stated Daniels, “I am stoked. I haven’t moved [since I heard the news]. I’m in bed feeling like a stuffed pig.”
The entire situation was summed up nicely by Best Actor nominee Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker). Renner was on live TV when his nomination was announced. Said Renner, “I can’t wait to link up with a few friends on the phone later and just scream and shout!”
Why the hell can’t you do that in your prepared statement? There are more than 100,000 members of the Screen Actor’s Guild. Each year, only twenty of those members get nominated for their performances in motion pictures. Save for Streep who has been in this position an amazing 16 times now, why wouldn’t you be exalted and happy beyond your wildest dreams?
Baseball teams have champagne on ice for when they clinch a spot in the playoffs. The players spray each other with bubbly and generally act like college kids on a bender. It’s a good time for everyone involved, a designation that includes broadcasters, audience members and clubhouse attendants alike.
When an actor gets nominated for an Oscar, the impression that his prepared statement gives off is that he was sitting down reading a good book when the Academy rudely announced that he had been nominated for a Best Actor award. At the rate we’re going, we’re about two years from having a nominee make the following statement, “I had plans to go to Vegas that weekend, but now, I suppose, I will have to cancel those. Just another night of working and talking to people. No, no, I’m happy. It’s just I’m going to also have to get a new tuxedo… God, I hope Billy Bush won’t be working the red carpet.”
The only thing worse than the incredibly lame platitudes being offered to the media was that, in an attempt to create more drama in their stories, several writers suggested that differing nominees were surprised by their nominations. Wrote Mike Ryan, “Kathryn Bigelow, only the fourth female director to ever be nominated for an Oscar, was clearly stunned by the news.”
The headline for Yahoo’s story on the matter was “Stars stunned by Oscar noms”. A picture of Sandra Bullock accompanied the story.
Bigelow won the Director’s Guild Award for Best Director and Bullock won a Golden Globe for Best Actress, am I really expected to believe that either one of them were actually surprised to be nominated for Oscars?
Overjoyed? Elated? Sure. Surprised? No.
Can you imagine LeBron James ever expressing surprise at the fact that his team made the post-season? I think not.
FIVE BEST PICTURE NOMINEES ARE NEVER GOING TO WIN
As I mentioned above, the Academy added five nominees to the Best Picture category this year. Given the very poor crop of films that was released in 2009, this was bound to produce one or two really undeserving nominees (ahem, The Blind Side). However, there was a secondary consequence of this act that I didn’t even think of until I began looking over the complete list of nominations. By not adding five nominees to the Best Director category, the Academy has effectively separated their Best Picture nominees into two very distinct tiers: the top five and the bottom five. The top five films are the films whose directors have also been nominated for Best Director. The bottom five are the films whose directors haven’t been. In years past, it has been seen as a colossal oversight to have a film nominated for Best Picture and not have its director also nominated for Best Director. This year, five films have been nominated for Best Picture and their directors, unless they were also credited as producers, will be left at home on the big night. Such is the nature of life for the directors of A Serious Man, An Education, District 9, The Blind Side and Up.****
**** Interestingly, this still didn’t stop some writers from complaining that even more directors still were snubbed in the nomination process.
Call that latter five the Oscar Best Picture Subdivision. I will go on record now as saying that no member of the Oscar Best Picture Subdivision will ever win Best Picture. The reasoning is simple: the Academy doesn’t make a practice of separating the two.
In the last 75 years, there has been one instance of a film winning Best Picture without its director earning a Best Director nomination: 1989’s Driving Miss Daisy. What I take this bit of trivia to mean is that Driving Miss Daisy shouldn’t have won the Oscar for Best Picture in the first place. Looking back on it, it doesn’t seem too far out of leftfield to suggest that Born on the Fourth of July, Field of Dreams, My Left Foot or Henry V might have been a better choice.
The Academy members are so tied to the belief that the Best Director Award should go to the person who directs the Best Picture that Kevin Costner beat out Martin Scorsese, Barbet Schroeder and Francis Ford Coppola one year because he happened to direct the year’s best film, Dances with Wolves.
If you’re still doubting me, consider the following: What are the odds that the year’s Best Picture wouldn’t be directed by one of the year’s five best directors? Isn’t that precisely what one of the year’s five best directors would (should) be doing?
What’s awful about the Oscar Best Picture Subdivision is that anyone with any degree of smarts will understand that even though there are ten nominees, only five of them really matter. This places the filmmakers associated with the films of the Oscar Best Picture Subdivision in a rather awkward place. They have to act like they’re extremely honored to be nominated for an award they have no chance of winning.
It will be quite curious to see the odds that the films in the Oscar Subdivision have of winning. My guess is that they will be quite high. I wonder whether the odds that a give picture is nominated for an Oscar (10 films out of 273 released breaks down to about a 1/25 chance) will be lower than that film actually winning.
Now to prepare myself for the scintillating acceptance speeches of the big night itself. Interestingly, I had plans to be in Vegas that weekend, I suppose I’ll have to cancel those. God, I hope Billy Bush won’t be working the red carpet…
