Would "Psycho" Have Won the New "Best Popular Motion Picture" Oscar? - Psycho (1960) Discussion

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

The Academy has rather painted itself into a corner with this one. Its been noted that they did this before by creating the Best Animated Film category, which usually chooses a Pixar, which are "guaranteed prestige entertainment," which means the movies are deserving of Oscars...but which means Pixar usually has a lock on this award. (Though is Disney separate from Pixar? Was Frozen only its achievement.)

Its also been rightly noted that this Best Popular Motion Picture category could end up like Best Song, where one or two actual Best Song quality contenders are surrounded by "filler song nominees" that nobody will ever hear, remember, or hum.(I think Best Song was fitting for Moon River and Que Sera Sera; silly for the songs from The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno.)

Its also been noted that while last year's TV ratings for the Oscars were "the lowest in memory," they still came in second to the Super Bowl, and they are still well above most programs. In other words, even the ratings crisis of relevance for the Oscar show isn't all that real -- but the beancounters at the networks care.

The "dismantling" of the Oscars has been going on now for some time. We had the Best Picture list expanded beyond 5(but not always to 10), which, as George Clooney said "made the basketball hoop twice as big for easier scoring." We had the honoring of established movie veterans shunted off to another night with highlight clips (and think of the Oscar show history we had when Charles Chaplin came on the stage, or -- lower down -- Ernest Lehman or Blake Edwards, with clips.)
Piece by piece, the TV broadcast is being winnowed down to "what the people want to see" -- but at the expense of movie history buffs like you and me.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

And now, a little fun -- as noted in my heading.

Psycho, famously, was not nominated for Best Picture in 1960 -- even as it now stands clearly as the best picture of 1960 and one of the best films in film history.

Well, if the "Best Popular Motion Picture" category was available in 1960, how would Psycho fare?

Well, let's say it won that category, and "The Apartment" won the "prestige" "Best Picture" award.

There would be irony , because: Psycho is a greater work of cinematic art than "The Apartment"(as a matter of technique, at least) so the two really should have been SWITCHED ("The Apartment" wins Best Popular Motion Picture; "Psycho" wins Best Picture.)

And now, a step further. Here are some Hitchcock movies that were not even nominated for Best Picture: Spellbound, Notorious, Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, Vertigo, North by Northwest, The Birds, Frenzy.

Why, I assume that ALL of those could be nominated for "Best Popular Motion Picture"(even though many of them, especially Rear Window and Vertigo are works of art. I'll go further: I could see Notorious, Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, and The Birds all WINNING that Popular Motion Picture Award(though The Birds might get routed by Its a Mad Mad World.)

But something's funny with this "backwards looking analysis" because back then...very POPULAR movies DID win Best Picture: Around the World in 80 Days; Gigi, Ben-Hur; West Side Story, My Fair Lady; The Sound of Music...The Godfather; The Sting.

Put another way, this new "Best Popular Motion Picture" category reflects TODAY's state of the movies: comic book hero movies; Star Wars sequels, and action movies on the one hand; small scale nobody-sees-it Oscar bait on the other(and then the rarity: a hit prestige movie -- La La Land, except it didn't win Best Picture.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

In some ways, the Academy is accidentally recognizing that "the movies" have been dead for years in terms of what they used to be: stand alone stories of interest. Today's blockbusters serve the role of TV series on the one hand(the familiarity of the same characters in new episodes), and amusement park rides on the other("This movie is a real thrill ride!" is a usual critical rave --- Mission Impossible 6 is, and I'm here to tell you that the scripted dramatic scenes are terrible in between.)

As I've noted before, the blockbuster movies are really a subsidiary of Silicon Valley now. Hundreds of computer artists are listed on the end credits scrawls now -- and they all made sure the computer effects are perfect and dull. The great achievement of The Birds -- done with subpar studio effects processes "back in the day" but stunningly well under Hitchcock's direction - would be an easy trade-out job to a CGI unit today. Hitchcock got it done when it was: Mission Impossible.

Sigh. On the one hand, this is all so important: to the relevance of movies, to the importance of TV ratings, to the growing rift among people in general. On the other hand, it doesn't much matter at all. The Oscar academy is simply acknowledging what the People's Choice Awards and the MTV Movie Awards have acknowledged for years: the movies that people actually go see in droves. And evidently, even "bad" TV ratings for the Oscars are higher than much else out there in today's fragmented viewing world.

Subjective quality has nothing to do with it.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

Is there any clarity yet on what a 'popular film' or 'achievement in popular film' *is*? Apparently ABC suggested 'Best Blockbuster' which suggests a budgetary (a budget > $100 million? Or perhaps whatever Ben Hur 1959 cost, continuously adjusted for inflation would be better) or perhaps a gross- or tix-sold-related criterion. But given that the Acad. *didn't* give ABC exactly what it wanted maybe something slightly more abstract is intended - i.e., popular as about content; the flick is a broad entertainment - rather than about literal size or money. It's a Wonderful Life and Wizard of Oz and The Thing and Master and Commander all flopped on debut but could still win a discerning Pop Film Oscar if an abstract reading of 'Popular Film' prevails.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Is there any clarity yet on what a 'popular film' or 'achievement in popular film' *is*?

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Not that I've seen. I think they actually wrote "the criteria will be announced at a later date" in their press release. They have clarified that a movie can be nominated in both categories. Using "Black Panther" as our measure for 2018, it could get nominated in the "prestige" category and win in the "popular" category. (By the way, I assume that the Best Picture award will remain that, and not be called "Best Prestige Picture" or something like that.)

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Apparently ABC suggested 'Best Blockbuster' which suggests a budgetary (a budget > $100 million? Or perhaps whatever Ben Hur 1959 cost, continuously adjusted for inflation would be better) or perhaps a gross- or tix-sold-related criterion.

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Interesting. Ben-Hur could be nominated for Best Blockbuster -- but not Psycho(which was an EARNINGS blockbuster, but made, as we know, very cheaply.)

Speaking of ABC, I don't know how long they have the license to broadcast the Oscars, but it has been pointed out that ABC is owned by Disney , which also owns...Marvel! So Disney/Marvel movies could start to dominate this category just in time for ABC cross-promotion.

In some ways, this reflects both a "dumbing down of the culture"(except I don't think blockbusters are dumb) and the "monopolistic corporotization of everything" (NBC, Comcast, Disney, Marvel) . The film business and the Oscar as they used to be -- "company town parochial" are gone, gone, gone.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

But given that the Acad. *didn't* give ABC exactly what it wanted maybe something slightly more abstract is intended - i.e., popular as about content; the flick is a broad entertainment - rather than about literal size or money. It's a Wonderful Life and Wizard of Oz and The Thing and Master and Commander all flopped on debut but could still win a discerning Pop Film Oscar if an abstract reading of 'Popular Film' prevails.

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Ah, but its such a slippery slope -- if "broad entertainment" , rather than dollars earned, is the controlling factor, which movies should go where?

I'd like to add here that as far as I'm concerned, The Shape of Water was just a more violent, politicized version of "Splash" -- a broad entertainment. It probably could have gone in both categories -- except it didn't EARN.

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I'd like to linger here a moment on another aspect of this "popular film" Oscar idea.

Back in the day, most movies were meant to be "one time only stand alones." Sequels were rare. And there were PLENTY of "one time only stand alones" that could have won that "Popular Film" Oscar: North by Northwest, Psycho, Rio Bravo...Butch Cassidy, The Towering Inferno, Jaws...

...but modernly, most of the blockbusters are sequels or series, so its a hard call.

The current Mission Impossible is getting rated as the best of the bunch, and earning more than most of them -- but its still just a sequel, pretty much the same old, same old. But it is GOOD as entertainment.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

And this:

This "Best Popular Motion Picture" category , in better days, would have been the perfect place to honor all those neglected GENRE movies: Hitchcock's thrillers, Rio Bravo, The Wild Bunch(with its mix of Western and horror), Jaws, Alien, The Thing, the original Star Wars(which didn't seem to have much chance of winning the "real" Best Picture Oscar. Not to mention comedies: The Marx Brothers, Some Like It Hot, A Mad Mad World; Animal House(very deserving), Caddyshack...

...which would leave the other Best Picture category stuck with dramas of all stripe(docudramas, epics, historical films like Lincoln.) "Food that is nutritious for you," versus dessert. (Recall Hitchcock's statement: "Other people's movies are slices of life. My movies are slices of cake.")

In some ways, I feel that this category has arrived too LATE. The popular movies today are barely movies. They are billion dollar TV series episodes, always "to be continued," never reaching true conclusion. Had this category been available "way back when" indeed King Kong and Them and Psycho and The Wild Bunch would have had much better chances of winning something.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

With the summer winding down, I will note that, even as my heart and soul are "in the movies of the past"(I watch about one of my favorite movies of prior years per WEEK -- Bullitt, Rio Bravo,The Professionals...Pulp Fiction...hell, I watched Topaz), I rather dutifully trooped off to the multiplex this summer to see:

Avengers
Ocean's 8(something has happened to Sandra Bullock's face...it looks like a rubber mask.)
Ant Man and the Wasp(I liked the first one, Paul Rudd is funny, and I like Michael Douglas)
The Equalizer II
Mission Impossible Fallout(6)

...and they all entertained me in the watching and they are all fading fast from memory. But I kept my habit up.
I probably liked The Equalizer II the best -- Denzel has pretty much become my favorite star and he dutifully killed off some really bad guys without mercy and inflicting great pain on them. I liked his line to four of them at once: "I'm going to kill each and every one of you, and my only regret is that I only get to do it once." If only he were there to handle Bob Rusk.

Ocean's 8 was interesting, with Bullock and Blanchett as the "two above the others" on the team(this stretches back to Yul and McQueen in The Magnificent Seven and Frank and Dino in the original Ocean's Eleven) -- but seeing the caper brought off only with women(oh, they get a little help from a few of the males of the other picture -- but not the ones you think) WAS a different experience. Anne Hathaway as a vain but insecure movie star, was the best thing in the movie -- she has star quality to me, a great sexiness not matched by her girlish sort of looks and her slightly cartoonish features.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Intriguing about Mission Impossible: Tom Cruise, once one of our great "stand alone movie stars" is now pretty much prisoner to one franchise. He joins the faded Depp and the continuing RDJ in that regard -- Cruise doesn't do too well in other vehicles, though he's got a years later "Top Gun II" coming next year. (Remember how shocking it was when Psycho II came out 23 years after the original? Now that's a usual thing.)

I was thinking about how the Mission Impossible franchise developed over the years. The first one was the last hit of Brian DePalma....and seems long, long ago. The second one was directed by John Woo and, in my opinion, ruined Woo's reputation and is "anti-entertainment": the worst of the bunch. The third one brought Phillip Seymour Hoffman on as a truly horrific villain(the trailer centered on his sluggish evil voice promising to kill Cruise's wife or girlfriend). And then they re-booted the whole series and these last three are pretty much the same movie -- great setpieces, great in the watching, but you never have to see them again.

To his credit, Tom Cruise "got with the program." The first Mission Impossible movie dispensed with a team and put Cruise out there as a "solo operative." But then his career took some hits and he realized this is a story about a TEAM. Ever since, he's had a TEAM, and its great to see Simon Pegg (fairly recent to the franchise) and Ving Rhames(the one holdover since the first one -- and a great memory of Pulp Fiction) acdting as part of a TEAM.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

SPOILERS for Avengers: Infinity War and Ant Man and the Wasp:

Meanwhile: Ant Man and the Wasp has one of those trademark "scenes after the credits" and -- I was surprised how touching it was -- its like a sudden, surprise tie-in to Avengers: Infinity War, and though I find the climax of THAT movie to be a bunch of fake-out hooey(half the Avengers die? Right)....suddenly it had power when the Ant Man gang didn't escape the doom ladeled out in Avengers, either. Some of the members of my audience actually gasped and cried out "oh no!" when the Ant Man twist arrived. Some folks really care about these characters.

That's how it used to be, at the movies.

I guess I used this thread to "round up the summer stuff I saw," like a tenth graders report. But I'm also using this report to say: which of these movies would MERIT even a "Best Popular Motion Picture Award"? The well-reviewed Mission:Impossible the most, but its all in the IMAX action, not in the story. Equalizer II is the first sequel Denzel has ever made(and its not much of a hit) but...no. Avengers? Sure...except, its a story in the middle of the middle. With an ending that seems one of the great fake-outs in movie history(I don't think anyone believes it for one bit, though.)

As for me, I'll keep going to this stuff for as long as I'm alive. My parents did. My grandparents did. Its a habit and it still fulfills with surprises along the way. I felt good when Denzel took out the baddies(during a freaking HURRICANE , which was almost North by Northwesty in making sure the climax was BIG;) it was nifty watching Bullock and Blanchett Be Cool and pull it off; I was surprisingly moved at the end of Ant Man and the Wasp. The movies still do their job for me.

Meanwhile, all that streaming TV to watch: The Americans, Justified, Ozark, Goliath...its all too much..and I'm trying to get Deadwood all watched before the reunion HBO movie or mini-series next year. (Its so weird, I'm engaging with Timothy Olyphant as a star in two series he made years ago...he's working in other things today.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

And before the summer ends, I'm going to see The Spy Who Dumped Me definitely(Kate MacKinnon's gotta break through SOMETIME) and maybe gonna see The Meg -- because I'm a sucker for CGI attempts to outdo Jaws (I've seen Deep Blue Sea and The Shallows.)

I wonder what's coming for Oscar bait in the fall?

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[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

Ever since, he's had a TEAM, and its great to see Simon Pegg (fairly recent to the franchise) and Ving Rhames(the one holdover since the first one -- and a great memory of Pulp Fiction) acdting as part of a TEAM.

Pegg and Rhames are good old-school character-guys aren't they?

Full disclosure: I love the scaling-the-tower-in-Dubai + Sandstorm sequences in MI4 so much! I rewatch that half-an-hour *regularly*.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

Anne Hathaway as a vain but insecure movie star, was the best thing in the movie -- she has star quality to me, a great sexiness not matched by her girlish sort of looks and her slightly cartoonish features.

There's some Hatha-hate out there perhaps because people feel her specific sort of presence and beauty has meant she's had it too easy.... but I find that normally she's one of the best things in all her films. Take Devil Wears Prada - people bend over backwards to complement Streep and Blunt (very good) in their roles but Hathaway is our POV character and if she's not winning then the whole show goes flat. I recently watched a widely praised Netflix Rom-com, Set It Up (2018) which owes quite a bit to what we might call the 'executive assistants in Manhattan' sub-genre that DWP solidified. Well, *neither* of the exec assistant leads in Set It Off has anything like Hathaway's ability to charm and move us. Set It Off's script and dialogue and visuals aren't anything special either but if you put better leads in place, e.g., 2005-era Hathaway for the lead gal then suddenly you're talking. Starry charisma is *so* central to light romantic comedy maybe you should just never green light such a project unless you've got someone with incredible quality to lead.

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[–] Doghouse (447) 6 years ago

Those to-be-announced criteria should prove interesting, if only to see how they make the differentiation. I won't be surprised if they induce some eye-rolling and howls along the way.

When defining popularity, I'd think ticket sales would be unavoidable as a consideration. Without it, how could the standard be anything but arbitrary? And then what? Cumulative sales (which would give spring or summer releases advantages over Xmas ones) or opening week only? And as another practical matter, which, then, becomes the "big" award of the night? Does Mr. Popularity come just before Best Picture (rather suggesting the status of "first runner up"), or do they completely throw out tradition and give the top spot to the new Oscar on the block?

All idle questions to which no one has the answers, but, I dunno; the whole thing sounds half-baked and cheapening. Although at this late date, that might be moot as a quibble ("I'm sorry, boy, but you do manage to look ludicrous when you talk about cheapening the Oscars").

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[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

When defining popularity, I'd think ticket sales would be unavoidable as a consideration. Without it, how could the standard be anything but arbitrary? .... And as another practical matter, which, then, becomes the "big" award of the night?

Ticket sales have the advantage you mention...but going so objective may (probably will!) sharpen the meaning of 'Best Picture' to 'Best film that nobody saw/Best Small Movie' since there'll be real pressure to produce different winners and 'share the award wealth'. And if *that* happens (which it almost certainly will) then I think it's clear that 'Best Popular' will be the *big* award even if it's presented second to last.

Note too that if this new award is perceived as a success then we're probably only one or two cycles of most acting noms going overwhelmingly to performances in films nobody saw before 'Achievements in Popular Acting' start to get recognized. Feed ABC and Fans with a Picture Award and they're going to want Chris Hemsworth and The Rock and James Bond and Capt America duking it out for acting awards too. Pressure to get creatively populist with things like 'Best Villain' awards will grow too. Lo....a can of worms openeth!

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Ticket sales have the advantage you mention...but going so objective may (probably will!) sharpen the meaning of 'Best Picture' to 'Best film that nobody saw/Best Small Movie' since there'll be real pressure to produce different winners and 'share the award wealth'. And if *that* happens (which it almost certainly will) then I think it's clear that 'Best Popular' will be the *big* award even if it's presented second to last.

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Practically no way to avoid. This is what I mean when I think the reporters who think "Best Popular Motion Picture" will be a "ghetto" catergory will have it backwards: the prestige category will be the ghetto, almost a charity category.

But surprises may occur. Looking backwards, I could see The Godfather winning BOTH Popular Motion Picture(for its grosses and entertainment value) AND Best Picture(for its art and fine acting.)

And again, "back in the day," it would have been award-worthy to give Jaws Best Popular Motion Picture and the high-earning Cuckoo's Nest its Best Picture in 1975(both were great films, well made and well written and acted); and ditto for Star Wars and Annie Hall in 1977.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Note too that if this new award is perceived as a success then we're probably only one or two cycles of most acting noms going overwhelmingly to performances in films nobody saw before 'Achievements in Popular Acting' start to get recognized. Feed ABC and Fans with a Picture Award and they're going to want Chris Hemsworth and The Rock and James Bond and Capt America duking it out for acting awards too. Pressure to get creatively populist with things like 'Best Villain' awards will grow too. Lo....a can of worms openeth!

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A can of worms , indeed. The Golden Globes and the MTV movie awards have laid the groundwork for this -- but Oscar was supposed to be "prestigious."

With the Golden Globes , in the acting categories, they have "Best Actor, Drama" and "Best Actor, Comedy or Musical"(and the same for actress.) This allows for two winners each year instead of one, and more stars turn out for the Golden Globes accordingly. The "Comedy or Musical" award has been given, as I recall, to Leo DiCaprio for Wolf of Wall Street("My greetings to my fellow comedians," he said with some irony upon accepting the award) and to John Travolta for Get Shorty(his acceptance speech thanking L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology reportedly killed his Oscar chances.)

MTV? Oh, I think they have Best Villain and Best Fight Scene and Best Kiss...its all fun, fun, fun.

But the Oscars were meant to salute "above the line" and "below the line" work of excellence. Art direction IS important; cinematography IS important, sound editing IS important....

I dunno. A real can of worms.

Personally I like my idea: just end the program and consider it to have gone the way of vaudeville and the horse and buggy.

Never gonna happen!

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[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

And again, "back in the day," it would have been award-worthy to give Jaws Best Popular Motion Picture and the high-earning Cuckoo's Nest its Best Picture in 1975(both were great films, well made and well written and acted); and ditto for Star Wars and Annie Hall in 1977.

Yes, there are lots of pairs like that where two best awards seems exactly right, e.g., Titanic and LA Confidential, Avatar and Hurt Locker, etc.. And recognizing things like Die Hard in 1988 and The Matrix in 1999 would have been just great. And, look, I strongly suspect that there's been some distortion in recent years with 'sharing the wealth' reasoning causing Picture and Director to go to different films. Maybe having a Best Popular award will dilute this distortion and get Best (Pop) Picture and Director awards back together again.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Yes, there are lots of pairs like that where two best awards seems exactly right, e.g., Titanic and LA Confidential, Avatar and Hurt Locker, etc..

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Exactly. When and if such "pairings" appear again in the Oscar years to come, this new award will look brilliant. The problem, as I see it, is that right now the blockbusters are almost entirely sequels, franchises...and very much in the comic book genre.

But should another Avatar/Hurt Locker match-up arrive, it will be properly honored.

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And recognizing things like Die Hard in 1988 and The Matrix in 1999 would have been just great.

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I recall in 1989 reading a few small articles about how one of the biggest snubs for the 88 Oscars was -- Alan Rickman should have been nominated as villain Hans Gruber. Given how many villains since Hans Gruber(in these kinds of films) have never managed Rickman's match of the evil, the witty, and the intelligent -- yeah, he was snubbed.

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And, look, I strongly suspect that there's been some distortion in recent years with 'sharing the wealth' reasoning causing Picture and Director to go to different films. Maybe having a Best Popular award will dilute this distortion and get Best (Pop) Picture and Director awards back together again.

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Could happen. I guess we should cross our fingers for good to happen, rather than bad.

Oh how I would have loved to see LA Confidential win Best Picture as Titanic picked up Best Popular Motion Picture.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

right now the blockbusters are almost entirely sequels, franchises...and very much in the comic book genre.

I don't myself see any problem with honoring *great* and near-great sequels, etc.. Aliens, Empire Strikes Back, Toy Story 2, etc.. Nor do excellent in parts installments like The Avengers, Dark Knight, LOTR films, pose any real problems. It's going to be ugly, however, when there's a string of years in which the best mega-movies are barely servicable, low-imagination affairs. E.g., if you look at MTV's hyper-populist Best Picture awards:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTV_Movie_Award_for_Movie_of_the_Year
there's some embarrassing stuff there with some truly horrible franchise films nominated, and some cringeworthy winners including Pirates sequels, Twilight sequels, Hunger Games sequels. Worse than Driving Miss Daisy, King's Speech, etc.? Probably.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I don't myself see any problem with honoring *great* and near-great sequels, etc.. Aliens, Empire Strikes Back, Toy Story 2, etc..

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I've been giving this some thought, and I think this:

The "easily imagined pairings" of:

Jaws/Cuckoo's Nest
Star Wars/Annie Hall
Titanic/LA Confidential

all involve films in which the "popular blockbuster" was an ORIGINAL (though granted, there had been other films about the Titanic before, but not with the fictional young couple.)

One wonders at what point Hollywood lost the ability to produce ORIGINAL blockbusters like those above; at what point the sequels and series took over.

I'm hard pressed to recall a truly original blockbuster -- I'll go with The Hunger Games, which split into "parts" but at least started out with something that could stand alone.

Meanwhile, back at The Dark Knight. I may have problems with the non-Heath Ledger scenes, but his scenes are so GREAT(and usually involve another actor like Christian Bale or Aaron Eckhardt getting to "redeem themselves" after banal other scenes)...yeah, sure, I'd give it the "The Best Popular Film" Oscar.

The Empire Strikes Back has been problematic to me since the day I saw it(in 1980) and even given its reviews as "the best of the series"(and the darkest). The problem: it clearly was NOT a stand alone movie. It didn't end so much as stop, with Solo frozen and other plot points dangling -- it didn't have the words "To Be Continued" at the end, but it should have , and I felt at the time: "This is not a movie, its a PIECE of a movie, the middle part, the second act."

I suppose this makes me reactionary. But one need only go back to the perfect endings of North by Northwest and Psycho, in which a great story has been definitively told to its great ending.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

It's going to be ugly, however, when there's a string of years in which the best mega-movies are barely servicable, low-imagination affairs. E.g., if you look at MTV's hyper-populist Best Picture awards:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTV_Movie_Award_for_Movie_of_the_Year
there's some embarrassing stuff there with some truly horrible franchise films nominated, and some cringeworthy winners including Pirates sequels, Twilight sequels, Hunger Games sequels.

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I expect the Academy may hold itself to some sort of standard...for instance, if only THREE sequels or series films merit "Best Popular Picture" status, only three will be nominated. I think the Special Effects award and the Make-Up award usually only have two or three competitors. All the junky MTV/Peoples Choice movies simply would not be nominated.

Its interesting. We're told for 2018 that there is one "lock" Popular Picture ready to be awarded: Black Panther. So this new category gets to start out strong. We will have to see if 2019 and 2020 yield equally strong candidates.

And how about my buddy QT? He's actually done OK at the Oscars in recent years: Best Original Screenplay win for Django; Chris Waltz won Best Supporting Actor twice; Morricone won for The Hateful Eight.

That said, QT never has seemed like a Best Picture man since Pulp Fiction got nominated (and won the Best Original Screenplay award).

Django WAS a popular hit. The Hateful Eight was not. Both had gruesome violence and offensive racial language. Both had great dialogue and cinematic flair.

Seems to me that QT might do better over in the "Popular Motion Picture" category than in Best Picture -- IF his movies can clear $100 million. I daresay that "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" with its controversy and its all star cast might be a front runner for Best Popular Motion Picture of 2019...

And hey...each of QT's films have been originals.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Those to-be-announced criteria should prove interesting, if only to see how they make the differentiation. I won't be surprised if they induce some eye-rolling and howls along the way.

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Well, they already have, and I think things will just get worse as they try to work the category out. For instance: the "regular" Best Picture category has expanded from a "pure 5" to, not only MORE nominees, but a kind of "wobbling" sense of how many nominees we will get. So...will "Best Popular Motion Picture" merit, say 9 nominees? Above, I've just listed most of the non-animated movies of the summer (that I have seen; I missed Solo and I kind of wanted to see it.) I'd be hard-pressed to give a major award to any of them, though I expect Avengers: Infinity Wars, with its all-character cast(NOT all star cast) and gloomy finale would get the nod. And yet if 9 can be nominated, you would HAVE to nominate some of the summer movies I have just noted(Mission:Impossible, an exciting rendition of already-done scenes, would likely make the list with Avengers.)

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When defining popularity, I'd think ticket sales would be unavoidable as a consideration. Without it, how could the standard be anything but arbitrary?

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Exactly. Which is why in any given years, sequels and franchise movies would have the upper hand. And this: modernly , it seems like various franchises "trade off" every other year or so: a Star Wars this year, a Batman that year, an Avengers the next. You could have "repeater nominees" --- Star Wars movies, Batman movies, Avernger movies. Its really a trap.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Speaking of Batman -- it is believed that the expansion of the Oscar categories beyond 5 in 2009 was to avoid the embarrassment of 2008 -- when The Dark Knight didn't even get a nomination. But within a few years --- "The Dark Knight RISES" couldn't even get a nomination among 9. The "erudite" voters simply didn't WANT to nominate blockbusters(and Rises wasn't as good as The Dark Knight, which you could chalk up almost entirely to the character of the Joker, and the tragic Heath Ledger's great performance in the role, which DID win an Oscar.)

I tell you, I'm not all that sure that The Dark Knight -- my personal favorite of 2008 -- merited a Best Picture nom. Setting aside all the Ledger scenes, a lot of the movie was rather banal(all scenes with Aaron Eckhardt both before and after he became Two Face); Maggie Gyllenhaal was miscast, and the "realism" rather undercut the fantasy of the piece (plus, the populace and officialdom of Gotham City were written as a pretty dumb bunch, always falling for the Joker's schemes.) The film is my favorite that year BECAUSE of the Joker scenes, and Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman expertly in support. But as some sort of great classic that was denied? I honestly think Tim Burton's Batman with Nicholson as the Joker and Keaton as Batman was a more stylish and coherent film. (With the right lady cast in the lead.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

And as another practical matter, which, then, becomes the "big" award of the night? Does Mr. Popularity come just before Best Picture (rather suggesting the status of "first runner up"), or do they completely throw out tradition and give the top spot to the new Oscar on the block?

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It will be a really tough situation...some years. They are from different years but suppose that "Black Panther"(at $700 million domestic right now) won Best Popular Motion Picture and "Spotlight" won Best Picture. "On its face," that would pit a movie that everybody has seen versus a movie that nobody has seen -- and "Spotlight" would look ridiculous.

In some years, I suppose the "prestige" Best Picture could be something big enough AND artful enough to compete with the Best Popular Picture. If "Black Panther" won Best Popular Motion Picture and "The Departed" won Best Picture, that would be more equal. Except wasn't "The Departed" primarily a crime-action entertainment, even with Scorsese at the helm?

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

All idle questions to which no one has the answers, but, I dunno; the whole thing sounds half-baked and cheapening. Although at this late date, that might be moot as a quibble ("I'm sorry, boy, but you do manage to look ludicrous when you talk about cheapening the Oscars").

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Ha, your use of that particular Psycho quote reminds us of Mrs. Bates surprising ability to undercut her son's self-esteem. One thing I hated about the sequels is that Mrs. Bates' dialogue was "dumbed down" and she was always raving about "sluts and whores." THAT "I'm sorry , boy " line -- was cutting edge.

This decision IS half-baked and cheapening, but probably inevitable. In a perfect world, the Oscars would simply be ended and shut down and honored as a historical ritual that was no longer relevant when the movies changed in the 21st Century. But it IS a tradition, people DO tune in and so...it will continue to suffer "the death of a thousand cuts" that began with the honorary winners of film history past being shunted off the show(doesn't anyone remember how Hitchcock, Cary Grant, and Howard Hawks got honorary Oscars, and how those events were show highlights?) , continued with the expansion of films(more on that in a moment), and now moves on to acknowledging the corporate side of the business ...making money...as a subjective criteria.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

About that "expansion from 5 films to 9 or so."

It was not unprecedented. Through the forties, I think, there had been 10 nominees for Best Picture each year. Under this criteria, Hitchcock managed to place two movies on the nominee list in 1940: Rebecca(which won) and Foreign Correspondent(which was masculine and action-packed where Rebecca was feminine and low-key.)

Narrowing the list down to five made a nomination more prestigious and suggested that there really were only five films worthy of Best Picture hood in any given year. BUT...had the "list of ten" remained in place through the fifties and sixties, I expect Hitchcock's movies would have garnered a lot more nominations. Rear Window, North by Northwest and Psycho for sure(artful hits.) Maybe even Vertigo (not a hit, disregarded as not that good, at the time.)

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[–] movieghoul (213) 6 years ago

Two Best Pictures isn't a new concept either. In the very first Oscars in 1928, there was a Best Picture award that went to Wings, and something like a best artistic achievement which went to Sunrise, sort of the reverse of what's being proposed. With the studios dominating who would receive the P award, there was a presumption that it would go to a BO success, so a niche award was created to cater to arty films which were less popular.

I actually see a couple of benefits to the proposal.

The new award will not be relegated to films released at yearend; studios are not going to stop releasing popular big budget films year round just to be better positioned for the Oscar. As noted above, the initial award is likely to go to a film released way back in February.

Also, while Black Panther is clearly the frontrunner in the new category, of films released to date, SPike Lee's Black Klansman is the front runner for BP, and it would be a nice symmetry if they both won.

What's the deal with popular animated films, would they be eligible in both Best Popular and Best Animated? I could see something like the original TOy Story winning both.

And would Psycho have won in this category back in 1960? IMO absolutely, since I envision the award would be given to a film that's both a huge BO success and has artistic merit and has has a significant impact on popular culture, and Psycho certainly fits all of these. In more recent times, Blair WItch Project isan example of a small budget film that could be nominated in this category.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Two Best Pictures isn't a new concept either. In the very first Oscars in 1928, there was a Best Picture award that went to Wings, and something like a best artistic achievement which went to Sunrise, sort of the reverse of what's being proposed. With the studios dominating who would receive the P award, there was a presumption that it would go to a BO success, so a niche award was created to cater to arty films which were less popular.

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As Ed McMahon used to say(or was it Johnny Carson?) "I did not KNOW that." Interesting. You can see how there was a certain "start and stop" flexibility to "getting it right" on the Academy's part.

I think they did pretty well in the fifties and sixties. Epics(Ben-Hur, Lawrence of Arabia); plush musicals (Gigi, West Side Story, The Sound of Music.) The occasional really good drama sneaking in (Marty, The Apartment with its comic edge.) The seventies is interesting for how many "entertainments"(however smart or gritty) got the prize: The French Connection, both Godfathers, The Sting, Rocky, Annie Hall(a rare comedy, but with dramatic overtones).

But the movie business changed. I recall 1984 being a watershed year, with a summer full of blockbusters(Ghostbusters, Temple of Doom, Gremlins, Star Trek III) and the Oscar bait...just that. Heavy dramas. Amadeus. The Killing Fields, etc. "The split began."

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[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

Heavy dramas. Amadeus.

Aw, I don't think of Amadeus as Oscar Bait/heavy drama. It's enormously entertaining, much as Mozart's music is. It revolutionized classical concert-going for a couple of years and inspired a dance-pop #1 worldwide, Rock Me Amadeus (the only German language song to ever get to #1 in the US). It probably didn't make Indiana Jones or Beverly Hills Cop money worldwide but it certainly made at least the equivalent of $300+ million now.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Heavy dramas. Amadeus.

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Aw, I don't think of Amadeus as Oscar Bait/heavy drama. It's enormously entertaining, much as Mozart's music is. It revolutionized classical concert-going for a couple of years and inspired a dance-pop #1 worldwide, Rock Me Amadeus (the only German language song to ever get to #1 in the US).

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OK...I remember all of that now. Still, it was pretty "high falutin'." I recall that in 1984, it made the most sense AMONG the serious films as the winner.

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It probably didn't make Indiana Jones or Beverly Hills Cop money worldwide but it certainly made at least the equivalent of $300+ million now.

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Well, this is like La La Land a couple of years ago. Oscar bait or not, some films of serious artistic intent are STILL hits.

But we live in an age where no modern movie really flops(practically every movie can make $100 million or more worldwide) and we can retroactively turn old grosses into high new ones. My feeling about the movies today(given all the money that can be made at the box office and then on subsidiary "feeds") is: you make a movie, it makes money. The only question is: how much?

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And how about this: I've read tons of articles on Psycho through the years(so you don't have to) and one of them -- in Film Comment, I believe -- compared Amadeus to Psycho by comparing Salieri(spelling?) to Norman Bates. The contention, as I will recall, is that Salieri, like Norman, hated someone else's freedom and spirit...so they killed that person. (Marion, Mozart.) The article had a photo of Norman in the cell next to Salieri as an old guy.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I actually see a couple of benefits to the proposal.

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I'm interested!

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The new award will not be relegated to films released at yearend; studios are not going to stop releasing popular big budget films year round just to be better positioned for the Oscar. As noted above, the initial award is likely to go to a film released way back in February.

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Yep...not even Marvel seemed to have much faith in Black Panther; hence the February release. Its success proves you CAN open a blockbuster in February(even amidst all the winter snow of East Coast America.) Years ago, another February release managed to stay in everyone's minds to the Oscars over a year later: Silence of the Lambs(a "serious" blockbuster -- the first shocker to get the award, yes?)

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Also, while Black Panther is clearly the frontrunner in the new category, of films released to date, SPike Lee's Black Klansman is the front runner for BP, and it would be a nice symmetry if they both won.

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Interesting, this, a couple of years after the Oscarsowhite brouhaha.

In some recent post, I offered my concern about not wanting my quickly type comments to ever be offensive on matters of weight or gay issues; I will here add race. The success of Black Panther seems to have crossed racial lines but it certainly seems to have eventually taken on the status of a "cause": make this movie a blockbuster. You had folks like Ellen DeGeneres buying out theaters so people could go for free; etc. The juggernaut is meant to end -- on the natural -- at the Oscars. What would have been a competitive attempt at Best Picture now looks to have a cakewalk for Best Popular Picture.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Is Black Panther that good? I don't know. Ashamed to say I haven't seen it yet. I DID see Infinity Wars and watched as the superhot Black Panther characters suddenly seemed relegated to just one little part of the story; it was as if "they're too BIG to be playing such a small part in this series." But nobody knew how big it was going to be. Black Panther is one of those rare things in Hollywood: a blockbuster that nobody saw coming.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

What's the deal with popular animated films, would they be eligible in both Best Popular and Best Animated? I could see something like the original TOy Story winning both.

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Well, currently, animated films can be nominated in both Best Picture and Best Animated Picture(I think one of the Toy Storys was) so now could an animated film get THREE bites of the apple?(Picture, Animated Picture, Popular Picture?) I assume this will be allowed to happen...but won't happen.

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And would Psycho have won in this category back in 1960? IMO absolutely, since I envision the award would be given to a film that's both a huge BO success and has artistic merit and has has a significant impact on popular culture, and Psycho certainly fits all of these.

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Yes, I've read newspapers of the time, and Psycho was clearly the movie of the year in terms of "buzz." Its mix of art and commerce is the biggest success in that regard outside of The Godfather, I think(which lacks the cinematic pizazz of Psycho at its best.)

And yet, I ALSO once read the 1959 wrap-out of the movies of the year by LA Times critic Philip K. Scheurer, and after he noted Ben-Hur and Anatomy of a Murder and The Diary of Anne Frank, he ALSO wrote: "Of course the movie everyone's been talking about since summer is North by Northwest. That's everybody's favorite." He was writing in Hollywood's hometown newspaper, so it means something. But it didn't mean much in the way of Oscar nominations(Original Screenplay, Editing, Art Direction, I think.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

In more recent times, Blair WItch Project isan example of a small budget film that could be nominated in this category.

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Yes indeed. That's "the Psycho story" based on an even cheaper budget with an incredible payoff at the box office. No names in it either(Perkins and Leigh and Miles and Gavin WERE names, if not the biggest of stars.)

And this: those guys who made it got megarich, tried for a sequel that flopped and, I think, one other stand alone movie that flopped and...they quit the biz. But they quit the biz as multi-millionaires. Not bad for one little movie.

Tenuous connection: one of the readings of Mrs. Bates in Hitchcock's Psycho is that, in voice definitely and a bit in look -- she's a WITCH. But how ABOUT that voice? Not all that removed from Margaret Hamiliton's trademark Wicked Witch of the West, is it?

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[–] movieghoul (213) 6 years ago

ecarle, don't get me started on the BOS nomination for NBN, because the Oscar went to .....Pillow Talk, an entertaining but thoruoghly pedestrian "sex" comedy of the time. THe other nominees, were Operation Petticoat, 400 Blows and WIld Strawberries, so there were 3 AMerican studio genre films, and 2 prestige foreign films (often nominated but rarely Oscered).
What especially gets my goat is that the 3 Hollywood nominees were all comedies of a sort, but I defy anyone to justify how either of the other two has a funnier script, line by line, than NBN.

Maybe studio politics hurt NBN's chances. 11 awards to MGM from just one film, Ben Hur, maybe the folks from Universal thought their studio should win SOMETHING.

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[–] ProductionNow (1072) 6 years ago

ecarle, don't get me started on the BOS nomination for NBN, because the Oscar went to .....Pillow Talk, an entertaining but thoroughly pedestrian "sex" comedy of the time.
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Pillow talk was not considered pedestrian with a overall 3 1/2 * rating, and Day's Oscar nod.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

ecarle, don't get me started on the BOS nomination for NBN, because the Oscar went to .....Pillow Talk, an entertaining but thoroughly pedestrian "sex" comedy of the time.
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Pillow talk was not considered pedestrian with a overall 3 1/2 * rating, and Day's Oscar nod.

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I appreciate the dialogue on how Pillow Talk took the Best Original Screenplay Oscar from NXNW. The truth of the matter is that the writer(s?) of Pillow Talk had a good reputation for humor and Day, Hudson and Tony Randall really sold the show(Thelma Ritter, too). But rumor has it that the NEXT Day/Hudson pairing was funnier still -- "Lover Come Back" -- and ad agency spoof that looks backwards to NXNW(Hudson as a womanizing Madison Avenue man) and forward to Mad Men.

Tony Randall once said, by the way: "You do realize those movies were driven by Rock and me, right? We were the comedy team people enjoyed." (And they did Send Me No Flowers with DD, too.)

Yet, for what respect I can drum up for Pillow Talk...no, NXNW was a much better OVERALL screenplay, which mixed plentiful one liners("Seven parking tickets") with expert plot twists and structure.

I agree with movieghoul: MGM put all its votes behind Ben-Hur and cleared the path in categories where it was not there.

I would note this, too: particularly back in 1959, the category "Best Original Screenplay" was slim pickings. This is because the studios DEMANDED(almost) that movies be made from pre-sold novels, short stories, or stage plays. This made the Best Adapted Screenplay VERY competitive(which is one reason why the great Psycho screenplay wasn't nominated there.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

...and makes it pretty aggravating that Pillow Talk could beat NXNW. (Wrote screenwriter William Goldman of this outcome: "Barf" -- and he used it as proof that the Oscars are worthless.)

But that's William Goldman. I don't think the script for Pillow Talk is worthless -- its pretty inventive and "plot twisty" too -- and its a good comedy and a very iconic one.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

THe other nominees, were Operation Petticoat, 400 Blows and WIld Strawberries, so there were 3 AMerican studio genre films, and 2 prestige foreign films (often nominated but rarely Oscered).

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I expect those foreign films got in there because, again, the "Best Original Screenplay" category was slim pickings. I mean even the megahit Operation Petticoat (Cary Grant's even BIGGER hit of 1959 than NXNW) was pretty light going.

Anecdote: Writer Peter Stone kept trying to peddle his original screenplay Charade to studios. He was told, "we aren't risking budgets on originals -- sell it as a novel first." So he did, but serialized to Redbook, which evidently demanded that the word "wife"(from a list of choices) be in the title. So Charade started as a story called "The Untrusting Wife"(or some such) in Redbook.

And Stone sold that story to Universal, a great movie was made -- but Charade couldn't get in the Best Adapted Screenplay category.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

BTW, Psycho benefitted from TWO Oscar categories that were almost as much of a "fish in a barrel" situation as "Best Original Screenplay" for nominations.

Of its four Oscar nominations, Psycho got nominated for:

Best Art Direction(black and white)
Best Cinematography(black and white.)

Well, the black and white categories in 1960 were fairly slim pickings too. And The Apartment took both of the above.

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[–] movieghoul (213) 6 years ago

Lover COme Back was a much better film and a better script than PT. Especially given what we now know about the Rock: there's a gay actor playing a strraight character who poses as a guy questioning his sexuality to seduce a woman. WOw!

Interestingly, one of the nominees in 1962, the year of LCB, was TOuch of Mink, another Day entry into sex comedy, but this time with Grant and Gig Young in the Hudson/Randall roles.

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[–] movieghoul (213) 6 years ago

Lover COme Back was a much better film and a better script than PT. Especially given what we now know about the Rock: there's a gay actor playing a strraight character who poses as a guy questioning his sexuality to seduce a woman. WOw!

Interestingly, one of the nominees in 1962, the year of LCB, was TOuch of Mink, another Day entry into sex comedy, but this time with Grant and Gig Young in the Hudson/Randall roles.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Lover COme Back was a much better film and a better script than PT.

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Well, here personal opinion enters in(as it does for all of us), but it did get some strong reviews from "respected" critics; Hudson was really seen as key to everything, suave and literally "big" while playing "comedy romance" against Day(exasperated that she works hard to get her ad clients; he just throws booze and women at them); and "comedy comedy" against Tony Randall(playing, essentially, Roger Sterling of Mad Men -- the golden spoon owner of an ad company who envies Rock's "up from the ghetto" achievement.

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Especially given what we now know about the Rock: there's a gay actor playing a strraight character who poses as a guy questioning his sexuality to seduce a woman. WOw!

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Yep -- he "went there." I think he got away with it -- as he got away with his whole career -- because his size and voice and manner always suggested "manliness" as Hollywood wanted it to be expressed. Dean, Clift, Perkins....Jack Lemmon...and even Brando...tended to access their feminine sides(Lemmon especially in Some LIke It Hot.)

And this irony: in the "iconography" of the Day-Hudson pictures, Tony Randall has a bit of a gay vibe. You'd think Randall was gay and Rock was straight. But it was the other way around. (In "Send Me No Flowers," the two men sleep together in the same bed, and the in-joke takes flight.)

For "Mad Man" fans, Lover Come Back has prototypes for Don Draper(Rock), Roger Sterilng(Tony Randall), Joan(Edie Adams), and the gay art director. And as she is a "working girl fighting male power," Doris Day here is roughly the Elisabeth Moss character.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Interestingly, one of the nominees in 1962, the year of LCB, was TOuch of Mink, another Day entry into sex comedy, but this time with Grant and Gig Young in the Hudson/Randall roles.

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Yes, it was rather interesting how once Cary Grant was substituted in for Hudson, somebody had to go in for Tony Randall. More interesting still: the choice was "mini-Cary Grant" Gig Young, a suave and handsome man with a great voice but whom, when paired with Grant, immediately became "supporting."

Some critics noted that Cary Grant -- for all his storied history -- wasn't as good as Rock Hudson with Day. There was more of an age difference, for one thing, and Grant really "underplayed" -- there was none of the sparks flying stuff that Rock could generate.

No matter...Doris Day AND Cary Grant...together for the only time...was big bucks in 1962. Grant was on quite a roll...NXNW, Operation Petticoat, That Touch of Mink, Charade...a couple more and he comfortably retired at age 62.

Funny about That Touch of Mink: both Grant and Day favored(practically REQUIRED) that they be photographed from the left side.(Watch NXNW in group scenes with Grant; its like everybody changes position until Grant gets that camera angle.) Evidently this led to lots of scenes of Cary and Doris being photographed "side by side" from the same angle. But when this was impossible, Cary gallantly gave the good angle to Day.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Note in passing: around 2003 or so, they tried to spoof the old Day/Hudson pictures, with one set in 1962 and filmed like "Mad Men". It was called "Down With Love."

Renee Zellwegger was a reasonable substitute for Doris Day. David Hyde Pierce was a very good Tony Randall type(and Old Tony Randall was IN IT; in "the Dean Jagger role," wrote one critic.)

But the casting of Rock was off: small, skinny, spindly Ewan MacGregor. He demonstrated how Rock's sheer SIZE was part of his appeal. Too bad that guy who played "Puddy" on Seinfeld wasn't a bigger star; he could have done it.

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[–] movieghoul (213) 6 years ago

Excellent point about the Hudson/Randall comparison. Remainds me of the ALl in the Family episode where the football player with the granite like chin was gay and the fey photographer was straight.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

Is Black Panther that good?

No it isn't. It's one of the better Marvel hero origin films, i.e., it's about as good as Iron Man or Antman or the first Cap. America are (with ropey, dull third act standard) - an 8/10-type movie. It's not as accomplished as the director's previous smash, Creed (which I thought was the best Rocky movie period - nice work).

Black Panther is, however, *politically* special even important: almost everyone both in front of and behind the camera is black and the tale they're telling is *the* great wish-fulfillment story for black people worldwide, what if an impoverished african state was a cover for the most technologically and sexual equality advanced civilization on earth (which is also simultaneously a deeply tribal and traditional/hallucinogenic/spiritual place and a non-democratic, succession-by-combat, absolute monarchy). It felt great to see this all represented on-screen, and the routineness of the underlying story etc. (which is mostly just Hamlet via the Lion King) and the film's overarching Marvel mediocrity were given a pass.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Is Black Panther that good?
No it isn't. It's one of the better Marvel hero origin films, i.e., it's about as good as Iron Man or Antman or the first Cap. America are (with ropey, dull third act standard) - an 8/10-type movie. It's not as accomplished as the director's previous smash, Creed (which I thought was the best Rocky movie period - nice work).

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Creed was very good; a sequel with such great connection to the original film and the best pieces that followed it.

As for Black Panther "tracking" with the usual Marvel fare, I kinda sensed that. The truth of the matter with me and Marvel is that often its the star actors who draw me in: RDJ and Jeff Bridges in the first Iron Man(and Mickey Rourke in the second); Robert Redford(as a baddie!) in Cap 2; Michael Douglas in Ant Man.

I didn't see Black Panther as having recognizable star actors in it(remember Denzel is one of my favorites) and I just didn't go. Then I watched it soar and...I'm gonna see it sometime.

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Black Panther is, however, *politically* special even important: almost everyone both in front of and behind the camera is black and the tale they're telling is *the* great wish-fulfillment story for black people worldwide,

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Well, it is pretty clear that that is the "story of the Black Panther phenomenon," and it has been taken up as a cause, and Oscar is now p retty big on such statements; the Academy is becoming, if not a "political being," a showcase for the movies beyond beyond being movies. Thus , Black Panther is a rare movie event, and a lock for SOMETHING.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Following Black Panther, I note that this very week in the US, a comedy called "Crazy Rich Asians" is getting a lot of ink because of its emphasis on ...Asians. I guess that's where things are now.

Me, I remember "Flower Drum Song" way back in the 60's. Nancy Kwan was hot; Oscar-winner uh Miyoshi Omeki? (the one from Saynara) was sweet; James Shigeta was like the Asian-American Cary Grant, and Jack Woo was the funny-cool comic relief.) Some pretty good Rodgers and Hammerstein songs. Saw it in the theater and it was a staple on NBC Saturday Night at the Movies.

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[–] PF4Eva (293) 6 years ago

If I were the Academy, I would do it this way...

1. Broad/commercial appeal (Satisfies anything that may or may not be considered prestige)
2. Genre films (Horror, thriller, superhero, sci-fi, fantasy, action, B movie, etc.)
3. Comedies
4. Cult films (Satisfies The Wizard of Oz and The Thing)
5. Groundbreaking commercial films (The Dark Knight, Avatar, Wonder Woman, Black Panther, IT, Get Out, Mad Max: Fury Road)
6. Films in this category are also eligible for the prestige awards (Pop prestige films such as Pulp Fiction, Halloween, The Dark Knight, Mad Max, Wonder Woman, IT, Get Out, Black Panther)

Then again, if I were the Academy, I would have honored pop movies to begin with.

Now back to your original question... would Psycho have won this category? Hell, yeah, it would.

Any of these films would have been nominated in 1961:

13 Ghosts
The Alamo
The Apartment
Black Sunday
The Brides of Dracula
Elmer Gantry
Eyes Without a Face
G.I. Blues
House of Usher
The Little Shop of Horrors
The Lost Voyage
The Magnificent Seven
Midnight Lace
Murder, Inc.
Never on Sunday
North to Alaska
Ocean's 11
Peeping Tom
Psycho
Purple Noon
Spartacus
Swiss Family Robinson
The Time Machine
Village of the Damned
The Virgin Spring
Visit to a Small Planet

Of course, Hitchcock, Kubrick, Corman and B-movie gimmick legend Bill Castle would be duking it out. I'd say Hitch would have had a fair shot.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

1. Broad/commercial appeal (Satisfies anything that may or may not be considered prestige)
2. Genre films (Horror, thriller, superhero, sci-fi, fantasy, action, B movie, etc.)
3. Comedies
4. Cult films (Satisfies The Wizard of Oz and The Thing)
5. Groundbreaking commercial films (The Dark Knight, Avatar, Wonder Woman, Black Panther, IT, Get Out, Mad Max: Fury Road)
6. Films in this category are also eligible for the prestige awards (Pop prestige films such as Pulp Fiction, Halloween, The Dark Knight, Mad Max, Wonder Woman, IT, Get Out, Black Panther)

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That's a pretty good overview of what usually DOESN'T win. Practically only leaves the rest of the field to...dramas and historical epics.

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Then again, if I were the Academy, I would have honored pop movies to begin with.

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Well, I'm realizing now that they kinda DID. The French Connection, The Sting and Rocky were definitely "pop movies" -- entertainments. IMHO. Now there used to be (in the 70's and 80s, at least) a nod to pop movies in NOMINATIONS: Airport, The Towering Inferno, Jaws, Star Wars...Raiders of the Lost Ark; ET...all nominated. But never won. (And that Raiders lost to Chariots of Fire and ET to Gandhi started an animus towards the Academy that has never really gone away IMHO.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Now back to your original question... would Psycho have won this category? Hell, yeah, it would.

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Agreed. Many of the critics who didn't like the content, saw the cinematic majesty of the work.

Philip K. Scheuer, LA Times critic wrote(paraphrased)..."It is unfortunate that Hitchcock used his incomparable cinematic gifts in the service of so unworthy a project." Or something like that.

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Any of these films would have been nominated in 1961:

13 Ghosts
The Alamo
The Apartment
Black Sunday
The Brides of Dracula
Elmer Gantry
Eyes Without a Face
G.I. Blues
House of Usher
The Little Shop of Horrors
The Lost Voyage
The Magnificent Seven
Midnight Lace
Murder, Inc.
Never on Sunday
North to Alaska
Ocean's 11
Peeping Tom
Psycho
Purple Noon
Spartacus
Swiss Family Robinson
The Time Machine
Village of the Damned
The Virgin Spring
Visit to a Small Planet

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I've put out a love letter to 1973 in other posts, but man...that's quite a list right there, isn't it? A reminder of how MANY movies got put out in those days.

I have only the vaguest memories of seeing a couple of those movies IN 1960(I was a wee one), but many of them caught up with me on TV in the sixties, and boy did I love a lot of those titles. Others I've caught up with much later.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Of course, Hitchcock, Kubrick, Corman and B-movie gimmick legend Bill Castle would be duking it out. I'd say Hitch would have had a fair shot.

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I like how you give Corman and Castle a shot(with Kubrick's being the megamovie Spartacus!)

Its funny: I don't remember Psycho coming out in the summer of '60(when I was riding a tricycle)...but I DO remember 13 Ghosts. The TV ads were scary. The radio ads were scary. The newspaper print ads were scary.

And this: years later, studying microfiche for research and looking up the 1960 August release of Psycho in LA(it played in NYC in June)...I'm pretty sure the LA Times ads for 13 Ghosts were on the same page as the ads for Psycho. As a very little boy(who was hooked, early, on newspaper movie ads -- Disney, cartoons, horror movies, pretty women) I looked right PAST the Psycho ad(it doesn't much "sell" as a horror movie, and likely i didn't understand the one-word title) and locked onto the 13 Ghosts ad ...and the Time Machine ad with the ugly monster Morlocks.

In any event, to the extent I still have a memory of 1960 at all...its 13 Ghosts, not Psycho. (And, oh...Pollyanna the same summer. What a sad ending!)

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[–] movieghoul (213) 6 years ago

ecarle, I'm sure you remember an annual TV show called Your CHoice for the Oscars which cited beforehand who the winners would be if picked by the public. I recall the period 1970-74: in 71 and 72 the public agreed with the Academy, but in 1970 chose Love Story over Patton, in 73 Exorcist over Sting, and in 74 Towering Inferno over Godfather 2. Note in all 3 years, the actual Oscar winners were not exactly unpopular films.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

ecarle, I'm sure you remember an annual TV show called Your CHoice for the Oscars which cited beforehand who the winners would be if picked by the public.

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It took your reminder for me to remember but...yeah! As I recall, it started as a local program in LA("Movietown USA") on local channel KHJ-TV 9, but was eventually syndicated all over the US(I saw it in later cities I lived that were not LA.)

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I recall the period 1970-74: in 71 and 72 the public agreed with the Academy, but in 1970 chose Love Story over Patton, in 73 Exorcist over Sting, and in 74 Towering Inferno over Godfather 2. Note in all 3 years, the actual Oscar winners were not exactly unpopular films.

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A case is really emerging here for the 70's as the decade when the most popular films won and were nominated. You are noting that "the people" backed The French Connection and The Godfather; but split with the Academy in those three other cases. I prefer The Sting to The Exorcist, but a lot of folks felt that got slighted just like "Psycho"(though at least it WAS nominated.) Personally, I find The Towering Inferno to be much more entertaining to watch than Godfather II(which was fatally missing Brando and Caan, and made only half the money of I) .

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Love Story is a special case. I've never seen it, but I was alive and cognizant when it became such a big hit. I recall a Time Magazine cover with Ali MacGraw and a sketch of huge lines to see Love Story. Well, years later, I found a NY Times advertisement for Psycho(about a week into its run) with a sketch of long lines to see Psycho. The Psycho ad MATCHED the Love Story Time cover. I realized: Psycho to 1960 was Love Story to 1970: the big event movie of the year (and Paramount's winner each time.)

Love Story is on my list of movies I really should see someday. I recall being turned off by clips of Ali MacGraw's acting and -- this is important -- as a fan of the more "Hollywood-ish" love themes of Henry Mancini(Moon River, Days of Wine and Roses, Dear Heart, Emily) and, later, Hamlisch's theme to "The Way We Were"(Kael called it sappy, I found it quite moving)....I found Francis Lai's love theme and scoring to be...weirdly unemotional. Overdone. Pretentious. Indeed...sappy.

I've given it some thought and I realize I didn't see Love Story because...I wasn't dating yet. I saw most movies with my family or "the gang" and thrillers and comedies came first.

Paramount studio chief Robert Evans said that Love Story led to a lot of sex after dates by people who saw it -- couples suddenly cherished each other's being alive and headed straight for the sack. A lot of "Love Story babies" were conceived.

Anyway, when the roll call of big 70's hits comes out, Love Story is pretty much the only one I haven't seen.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

In contrast to Love Story, I'm a big, BIG, BIG fan of "The Way We Were," but mainly for Robert Redford's cynical character who got some of these great lines:

Streisand: You think politicians are funny?
Redford: Sure. You make fun of them. What else can you do with them?

Redford(to leftist Streisand when she doesn't laugh): Well, comes the Revolution, maybe we'll all have a sense of humor.

Redford: Its grown-up politics, Katie, and its stupid and dangerous, and people get hurt.

I recall comparing TWWW to Love Story without seeing the latter, and deciding that a movie about a couple not being compatible(but being in love), marrying(and encountering nothing but trouble), divorcing, and getting that bittersweet false reunion at the end -- was REAL, much more encountered by many more people than young death(though surely that happens, too.)

I have cited 1973 as a great year for entertainment mainstream movies, and The Way We Were is a big part of that for me. I WAS dating by then, my emotions connected with that movie at the time I saw it, and all these years later I have nostalgia both for the movie and for the woman(then young, like me then) I saw it with, loved...and lost. We didn't know it when we saw it(well, maybe we DID)...but we were looking at our future when we saw The Way We Were.

There see...it isn't ALL Psycho!

PS. The Way We Were was first written by Arthur Laurents, who wrote Rope for Hitchcock. Laurents was eventually fired off the script, I think by "Redford's team for giving too much to Streisand."

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[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

@ecarle. Ha, I've seen Love Story and even read the book first (you can read it in under two hours). The book reads like a screenplay for a very bad weepie movie, and the film pretty faithfully transcribes it. It's incredibly flimsy stuff but no worse really than the romance/melodrama side of Titanic. Kids of a certain age and disposition will swoon and cry at any doomed young love story. Even they, however, have to giggle at the "love means never saying sorry" line which the movie repeats in its final scene and expects us to take seriously as not only true but as a *great* truth for the ages!

Patton is an excellent film - vastly superior to Love Story, as is Five Easy Pieces, The Conformist, and many other films from 1970. I'd be hard-pressed to think of a clearly worse Best Picture nominee than Love Story. Maybe Scent of a Woman is worse.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Ha, I've seen Love Story and even read the book first (you can read it in under two hours). The book reads like a screenplay for a very bad weepie movie, and the film pretty faithfully transcribes it.

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That was the "deal." Erich Segal wrote the screenplay, and Paramount chief Robert Evans had it "re-typed" as a novel(by Segal, I think) and sent the novel out ahead of the movie(I can't remember how many months.) Now, often, screenplays were re-typed WHEN OR AFTER the movie came out, as "novelizations." But the deal here was to put the screenplay/novel out to create a bestseller.

I might add that The Godfather was almost the same deal. There, Mario Puzo pitched his "Godfather" idea(then entitled "Mafia") to Evans "in general," and Evans bankrolled Puzo the money to write the book, and simultaneously optioned that book. But the novel of The Godfather is a fair sight different than the movie -- almost all the sex scenes and an entire Las Vegas episode didn't make it to screen.

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Keep in mind that this was a movie era where best sellers got "first dibs" on being "where the big movies come from."

The paperback version of a bestseller always had on the cover: "Soon to be a major motion picture." (This is another reason that original screenplays didn't sell too good.)

"Soon to be a major motion picture" adorned the paperback covers of:

Rosemary's Baby
Love Story
The Godfather
The Exorcist
Jaws...

.....and (of all things)...Topaz. (Perhaps the only time after Rebecca that Hitchcock agreed to FILM a bestseller.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

It's incredibly flimsy stuff but no worse really than the romance/melodrama side of Titanic. Kids of a certain age and disposition will swoon and cry at any doomed young love story.

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No less than Alfred Hitchcock opined on "Love Story" -- because it was a giant hit right before he started work on Frenzy and he was being interviewed about that: "Love Story -- this rich boy/poor girl story is practically Victorian. And you know, everybody loves a good cry, they don't love a bad cry."

(I would like to here note that my rather constant references to Frenzy reflect, not so much the movie itself as the fact that Hitchcock "came out of the woodwork" to give LOTS of interviews from about 1970 to 1973, with "Frenzy" as the centerpiece: he was going to make it, he was making it, he was promoting it in release, he was basking in its success a year later, etc. Something about "Frenzy" even BEFORE it came out, gave Hitchcock the confidence to go out in public again.)

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Even they, however, have to giggle at the "love means never saying sorry" line which the movie repeats in its final scene and expects us to take seriously as not only true but as a *great* truth for the ages!

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I was watching Ryan O'Neal as Barbra Streisand's co-star in "Whats Up Doc," the other night, and at the end, the two lovebirds exchange these lines:

Streisand: But you know...love means never having to say you're sorry (and then she makes an overly loving face and mockingly bats her eyes about ten times.)

O'Neal: (Pause) That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

So here was Love Story -- and that line -- getting a major diss FROM ITS STAR less than two years later. (This was yet another way in which I was dissuaded from seeing Love Story.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

The whole thing about tearjerkers: I go with Freidkin's line: "Audiences go to the movies to laugh, to scream, or to cry." Yep, the biggest hits do that(though scream = get excited, and I think that takes in the MCU blockbusters today.)

But tearjerkers are tricky. If they are done well, and with "prestige" you get a Best Picture like Terms of Endearment or a classic like ET. (Or the end of The Way We Were.)

If anyone suspects "phoniness," the movie may make money, but it doesn't get much respect. That's Love Story, I think. I was a teen when it came out, but thoughtful enough about movies, and it just FELT bogus to me(the commercials, the acting in clips, the theme music.)

Its also my contention that the bulk of superstar Tom Hanks career (in its prime) was tearjerkers. Everybody cried at:

Big
Turner and Hooch(the damn DOG dies)
Sleepless in Seattle
Philadelphia
Forrest Gump
Saving Private Ryan
You've Got Mail
The Green Mile
Cast Away...

....and many more I can't remember. When he went in another direction(comedy villain in The Ladykillers)...nada.

But for the most part, Hanks Tearjerkers are "prestige" tearjerkers.

I really should see Love Story. Maybe I'll change my mind about it.

PS. Titanic? The greatest match in the world: tearjerker and disaster movie.

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[–] movieghoul (213) 6 years ago

I recall in the theater where I saw WUD O'Neal's line couldn't be heard the audience was still laughing so hard.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Patton is an excellent film - vastly superior to Love Story, as is Five Easy Pieces, The Conformist, and many other films from 1970. I'd be hard-pressed to think of a clearly worse Best Picture nominee than Love Story. Maybe Scent of a Woman is worse.

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Well this was back when the popular blockbusters got a "courtesy slot" among the Oscar nominees. Didn't Airport get a Best Picture nod that year too?

But I think some of the later "popular" nominees were quality product. "Jaws" certainly -- I see no reason why it should NOT have won the Best Picture Oscar(Shaw's Indianapolis speech is tres' serious), but even The Towering Inferno struck me as having a certain "quality control"(all the expert talk between McQueen and Newman about building codes, wiring, explosives, etc) and great star acting.

A side thought about "Inferno": I have found with certain movies, a certain actor and his/her character can "take over the movie" and render the other actors and scenes "less than."

One I've mentioned before: Heath Ledger as the Joker in The Dark Knight. All his scenes: great. The rest of the scenes: not so great.

And that's the same "back in the day" with Jack Nicholson as the Joker in Batman. All his scenes: great. The rest of the scenes: not so great.

With Towering Inferno, its McQueen. All his scenes are great. The rest of the scenes aren't so great. (And McQueen has great scenes where Paul Newman and William Holden get to shine WITH him.)

With Frenzy, its little known Barry Foster as Bob Rusk. All his scenes were great(if highly disturbing in one key case.) The other scenes: not so great.

With Strangers on a Train, its Robert Walker as Bruno Anthony. Same drill.

With Psycho...its Anthony Perkins as Norman. No, wait, it ISN'T. Janet Leigh is compelling for 30 minutes before Perkins even shows up, and Martin Balsam is compelling and gets some scenes all to himself.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Patton is an excellent film - vastly superior to Love Story, as is Five Easy Pieces, The Conformist,

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It is at that.

There's the fascinating irony that Scott refused even to be considered for Best Actor, yet alone to accept it -- and yet this is one of those times in Oscar history where he was so clearly the Best Actor of the year that the other names on the list(however good the actors) were just "window dressing."

And this: Scott won that Oscar on screen BEFORE THE OPENING CREDITS ROLLED. All he needed was the pre-credits scene where he strutted out in front of that giant American flag and said all those profound, profane, outrageous things -- and Oscar(and film history) were his.
I'll bet a lot of people forgot the plot of the movie that followed!

I checked the five Best Picture nominees for 1970:

Airport
Five Easy Pieces
Love Story
MASH
Patton

This was sorta/kinda a repeat of 1967:

Bonnie and Clyde
Dr. Doolittle
The Graduate
Guess Who's Coming for Dinner
In the Heat of the Night

Idea being:

Two establishment films:

Airport, Love Story(Dr. Doolittle Guess Whos Coming)

Two counterculture films:

Five Easy Pieces, MASH (Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate)

One "in between" film:

Patton(In the Heat of the Night)...

and.. the "in between film" won the honors.

Francis Coppola co-wrote the Oscar winning script for Patton(it helped get him The Godfather) and the film struck BIG nerves in this year of Vietnam, principally when Patton says:

"America loves a winner....and WILL NOT TOLERATE a loser." Here was the crux of Vietnam in a nutshell. LBJ and Nixon did not want to be "losers" and the country got torn apart accordingly.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

And then there's that scene deep in the movie(based on a real incident) where Patton comforts wounded, crippled and disfigured men in a medical tent, then meets a man in there who has had a nervous breakdown and is crying ...and slaps the man for his cowardice and for being in the same tent as "brave men."

Such a disturbing scene. I expect fathers and sons watched that scene with mutual queasiness, with Patton "loving" the men who died or got their bodies forever mangled(in his service) and hating "the crybaby."

Yep, the opening speech in front of the flag; the "slapping" scene -- Patton was a different kind of epic, a different kind of war movie. It summoned up a lot of audience emotion in 1970, cut to the bone on the issues of war and military service(with somebody's line "Patton was a great businessman whose business was war" also relevant.)

MASH the movie came out that year too. Hilarious. Sexual. Gory and bloody about war and the military hospitals that put slashed-apart men back together again.

The draft ended three years later in the US.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

Well, that didn't last long! The Academy has put the Best Popular Film Oscar in turnaround:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/academy-postponing-new-popular-oscar-category-1140423
This episode is going to be a good source of insider jokes forever. I wanna hear everyone from Jack Benny and Rodney Dangerfield to Woody Allen and Larry David goof on it.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Ha.

In these trying times, nothing is permanent....

And what an elite group of comics you summon up. Jack Benny...my parents favorite, became one of mine, too. His show was sort of a dry run for Seinfeld, what with all the oddball characters surrounding him and his role as "Jack Benny, comic, in his private life."

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[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

And what an elite group of comics you summon up. Jack Benny...

I just imagined that Benny would have some really sharp angle on something like this. After all you can re-purpose his most famous joke pretty straightforwardly: 'Your money (Billions-grossing Pop Oscar) or your wife (Prim and Proper, artsy Best Picture Oscar)?' [Beat]... 'I'm *Thinking*'.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I just imagined that Benny would have some really sharp angle on something like this. After all you can re-purpose his most famous joke pretty straightforwardly: 'Your money (Billions-grossing Pop Oscar) or your wife (Prim and Proper, artsy Best Picture Oscar)?' [Beat]... 'I'm *Thinking*'.

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Ha! Great analogy.

In my family household growing up, the parents had us spend a lot of time watching Jack Benny and Bob Hope...and got me convinced that Benny's act was far funnier(as a TV guy, Hope in 40s' was the best on film). Benny had this deadpan thing going that would be picked up by Bob Newhart, and of course the "cheapskate" act, and the fact that the old guy's age held at "39"(I didn't get it then, boy do I now.) And...he didn't get no respect.

I rented some 60's Benny episodes, and the best had Raymond Burr guest starring as...Perry Mason. The gag was stupendous. Mason shows up in court to defend Benny over killing his neighbor's rooster(this is a dream, Benny wouldn't do that.) All the jurors and even the judge demand Mason's autograph. Benny is sure his acquittal is in the bag.

And then...Mason totally, idiotically screws up every cross-examination, becomes a bumbling fool. And Benny goes nuts: "What's happening! You're Perry Mason!" Mason: "Sorry Jack...I guess I only win on Saturday nights."

"On topic": critic Manny Farber wrote that the Marion Crane scenes of Psycho are "as bare, stringent and minimal as an old black and white Jack Benny episode."

Sad: Neil Simon's tale of re-uniting vaudevillians -- "The Sunshine Boys" went into pre-production with Walter Matthau and Jack Benny. There are photos of the two rehearsing. But Benny took ill and quit(soon, dying.) Benny recommended his pal George Burns for his role --Burns won the Oscar. He was great. But I do wish we had had Benny and Matthau.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Well, that didn't last long! The Academy has put the Best Popular Film Oscar in turnaround:

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Well, I guess they feel that it "wasn't ready for primetime," and they may try to refine it but...its a losing proposition.

The Academy hasn't so much painted itself into a corner as become largely irrelevant to "the movies."

We've discussed it here many a time. Once upon a time, the movies that won were big , culture-defining hits that everybody knew: GWTW, Casablanca, From Here to Eternity, Ben-Hur, West Side Story, The Sound of Music, The Godfather, The Sting.

But that is practically impossible today. Oh, maybe another Marty and Rocky might sneak through -- but they were little movies that became huge hits.

As of 2018, the summer and Xmas blockbusters are a product of Silicon Valley, not Hollywood(I've just seen a trailer for Aquaman that looks like a computer program, not a movie.) Dramas like The Shape of Water and Three Billboards(which had an especially good script) can be saluted, but aren't widely seen.

And for my money in the 00's, The Sopranos and Mad Men were delivering Best Picture quality drama and dialogue that "the movies you pay to see" rarely could match.

The movie business and the TV business have diverged and merged and mixed and matched -- with Silicon Valley running much of the business -- and there is no way the Oscar ceremony can twist and turn to capture good filmmaking in one ceremony(Special effects film? Indie drama? Cable TV masterpiece? Streaming limited series?).

It doesn't really matter. Yes, recent ratings have gone down for the Oscar show...but it is still one of the most watched shows of the year. Viewers turn up. They always will. Even if the movies in competition aren't known. (And even if, I would offer, bona fide genuine movie stars to PRESENT the awards are in ever shrinking supply.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Of course, at the 2018 Oscars, at least one of them WILL be well known: Black Panther. It is probably just as well that this popular film will be entered in the "legitmate competition" that the current 9 to 10 picture strong Best Picture category is. Let Black Panther rise or fall on its merits. And if some little bitty indie movie that made 5% of the Black Panther gross beats it....that's show biz.

I think they might as well just keep doing the Oscar ceremony "as is today." Give the awards to The Hurt Locker and Moonlight and Spotlight and The Shape of Water(which seemed a pat on the head to the very nice movie superfan Guillermo del Toro).. and let the rest of the worldwide billion-dollar grossing movie market do its own thing.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

Yes, recent ratings have gone down for the Oscar show...but it is still one of the most watched shows of the year. Viewers turn up. They always will. Even if the movies in competition aren't known.

Vaguely relatedly, Netflix continues increasingly to threaten the whole theatrical exhibition business for non-IMAX-read blockbusters. Consider the two big festivals on right now at Venice (Italy) and Toronto. Netflix had 6 films at the former and 8 films at the later (including repeats from Venice).

Their Venice entries included Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma,” which won, Paul Greengrass’s “22 July,” (about the massacre at Utoya in Norway), the Coens' “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” which won Best Screenplay, and the restoration/completion by Bogdan. of Welles's Other Side of The Wind.

At Toronto, Netflix made a splash with Outlaw King, a Bravehearty epic from Hell or High Water breakthrough director David Mackenzie.

In sum, these are *all* the sorts of top directorial efforts that get critics and specialist audiences jazzed.
While these films will get the odd theatrical presentation at festivals and to secure awards consideration, almost everyone will see these at home in the next month or so. It feels like this could be a turning point for te film exhibition model that's held for almost exactly 100 years. Maybe the only movie-movie exhibition business that's going to be left is the Pop Oscar level stuff! The Acad may have no choice but to revisit its Pop Oscar decision in the next few years.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

While these films will get the odd theatrical presentation at festivals and to secure awards consideration, almost everyone will see these at home in the next month or so. It feels like this could be a turning point for te film exhibition model that's held for almost exactly 100 years. Maybe the only movie-movie exhibition business that's going to be left is the Pop Oscar level stuff! The Acad may have no choice but to revisit its Pop Oscar decision in the next few years

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You know, this whole "Netflix makes movies" business has me massively confused. The one I've been focused on in this regard is "The Irishman," the movie in which Scorsese has re-united DeNiro and Pesci and added(for the first time), Al Pacino. And I think either/or Ray Liotta and Harvey Keitel are in it too. One, not both.

Anyway, is the Big Scorsese Reunion movie -- and its for Netflix. I read up on this and learned that Scorsese's contract demands SOME theatrical release before the movie goes to Netflix for TV broadcast.

Of course, the concept of "TV" has violently changed over the years, too. Once upon a time: network broadcast(that's where I got my Hitchcock Love in the 60's) and local syndication(that's where I picked up Strangers on a Train and The Wrong Man while NBC and CBS ran Rear Window and NXNW; and famously, local is where Psycho went, never getting network broadcast.)

But soon we had "pay cable" -- HBO -- and the "movies" that are made there. (In recent years, Michael Douglas and Matt Damon in the Liberace story struck me as an example of big stars in offbeat material.)
But soon we had "basic cable" and a show like Mad Men could thrive...but without the freedom of nudity , sex and language allowed on HBO. (I liked that Mad Men, a show about the sixties, was rather held to pre-R rating censorship, itself.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

And now we have Netflix streaming and Amazon Prime streaming...mid-level stars like Billy Bob and Jason Bateman in series. Julia Roberts just announced for a pay TV show and had a funny comment: "I don't think there's a big difference between movies and TV. My TV is pretty big." I'll bet it is.

I guess Julia Roberts isn't quite a superstar anymore. It was a great run. Meanwhile, Jim Carrey -- who I thought was definitively over, has some sort of show somewhere.

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The whole issue of "what will the movies become" has an interesting history of Predicted Doom:

In the 70's, Pauline Kael opined that movies would disappear(like Vaudeville) and ALL filmed entertainment would be on TV, only. She was wrong -- but close.

In the 90's, I think, Spielberg and others opined that movie tickets should be priced differently -- top dollar for big budget blockbusters, less for indies -- that was shot down because indies(Blair Witch) can TURN INTO blockbusters, using the higher ticket prices.

Budgets matter on movies.

I recall the "ABC Movie of the Week" rage in the 70's. You'd get these cheapjack 90 minute TV productions announced by the narrator as "an original motion picture produced for ABC television" but they WEREN"T movies. They were something else. (90 minutes with TV commercials was more like one hour 15 minutes.) The stars weren't too big in these things -- Dennis Weaver was typical, but some movie stars did them, eventually(Anthony Perkins in How Awful About Allen.)

Most of the Movies of the Week were marginal. But a few got a certain classic status. Spielberg's Duel as a thriller entertainment, but also many dramas on certain topics(Martin Sheen was usually in them, whichever they were). Burt Reynolds did a few, pre-movie star. And short and cheap as it is, I love Peter Hyams Bogart-spoof "Farewell My Lovely" with Richard Boone and little person Michael Dunn as Mutt-and-Jeff private eyes(this got Hyams a movie director career.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I read an article about how, when NBC started putting theatrical movies on TV(Saturday Night at the Movies), the CBS chairman William Paley at first resisted following suit, feeling that using movie-movies on TV was an easy way out of producing TV shows.

But someone persuaded Paley: a big 'movie-movie" back then had a budget of about $3 million. A TV episode , about $250,000. Viewers could tell the difference...reacted to more "quality." I know I did.

All of this is to provide backdrop and background for the fact that the Motion Picture Academy is probably doomed in trying to match its awards to reality. A movie HAS to get a theatrical screening to qualify, minimum, but theatrical films that mainly get shown on streaming? What's the rules? And are Julia Roberts and Jim Carrey movie stars anymore?

Which triggers one last memory of how this problem has been with us a long time. In the early 70s, a spate of fading movie stars all agreed to do run-of-the-mill, "eh?" TV series, whether dramas or sitcoms. Here they came: James Stewart, Henry Fonda, Shirley MacLaine, Anthony Quinn. And they all flopped and got cancelled fast. And it was horrible: these "major movie stars" couldn't even keep a free TV series afloat. Of the group, only MacLaine made a full comeback to movies(and Fonda got a late-breaking Oscar for On Golden Pond.) Still, how brutal: if people won't watch you for free, how can you expect them to pay?

Good luck, Oscar ceremony. Maybe they can just start broadcasting old ones, once a year. Let's go back to 1965 and see The Sound of Music dominate. Let's go back to 1972 and watch Satcheen Littlefeather turn down Brando's Oscar....

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Their Venice entries included Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma,” which won, Paul Greengrass’s “22 July,” (about the massacre at Utoya in Norway), the Coens' “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” which won Best Screenplay, and the restoration/completion by Bogdan. of Welles's Other Side of The Wind.

At Toronto, Netflix made a splash with Outlaw King, a Bravehearty epic from Hell or High Water breakthrough director David Mackenzie.

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That's a group of interesting films, from interesting filmmakers, on interesting topics.

The restoration of Welles' The Other Side of the Wind strikes me as a really big deal. First, it will restore Bogdanovich to some public appearances and interviews, no doubt -- a late career "save" of sorts. But this damn movie -- made over DECADES -- has been rumored for years. I expect a lot of mismatched scenes, actors...and a storyline that barely coheres. But I gotta see it.

And what's this new Coen Bros film? They've been around a long time, and did some big things in the 90s's(Fargo, Lebowski) and the 00's(No Country for Old Men) and 2010(True Grit) but...they seem to fade in and out in terms of being "among us, doing work." I honestly have to go check what their last major movie was. And hey, I'm the one guy on earth who loved their Ladykillers remake(see, I DO love all sorts of remakes.)

Paul Greengrass doing a movie about the Norway gun massacre(of a lot of kids, right)? He gave us the definitive Flight 93 movie -- the horrors of real life are still the most chilling.

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[–] movieghoul (213) 6 years ago

The new Coen Bros is slated for the New York FIlm Festival, but get this, it's not a theatrical film, it's a TV miniseries!

THat sure blurs (or completely eliminates) the line between theater/home viewing!

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

The new Coen Bros is slated for the New York FIlm Festival, but get this, it's not a theatrical film, it's a TV miniseries!

THat sure blurs (or completely eliminates) the line between theater/home viewing!

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Absolutely.

I think the Oscar academy is flat out trapped.

They should narrow their focus where it always was: single films, shown on a theater screen for paying audiences, of quality.

That's it. We may get good little movies like Spotlight and 3 Billboards(I know, it didn't win Best Picture, but it should have) forever...but the contest will be honest. And if a blockbuster like Black Panther makes the grade...great!

What the Oscars are facing is irrelevance. They are of another time and place(hello, Miss America!) -- but people still tune in, is the weird part. The ratings will never sink to nothing.

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