The Official 87th Academy Awards Thread

[kp404]

Oyelowo >>>>>> Carrell and Cooper

It's obvious imo

shyt Hardy in Locke >>>>>> Carrell and Cooper

No argument here

 

[MartyMcFly]

The biggest story on Oscar morning has nothing to do with front-runners Birdman, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and Boyhood: Instead, everybody's talking about Selma, Paramount's exquisitely reviewed Martin Luther King Jr. drama, which missed out on some of the key nominations its supporters were hoping for. The movie did manage a Best Picture nod, which is an awfully big honor — and one that's practically been overlooked today, amid all the outrage and recriminations — but nevertheless, two of its snubs really stung: Selmadirector Ava DuVernay was left off the Best Director short list, and the film's lead actor, David Oyelowo, couldn't crack his jam-packed category, either. What went wrong?

I don't think there's a single right answer to that question, though many have been tempted to ascribe Selma's two major snubs to its subpar screener situation. While it's ideal to watch an awards-season contender on the big screen, busy voters often rely on screener DVDs to help them catch up on the movies they may have missed. Sometimes, those screeners can make all the difference: Crash's Best Picture win in 2005 was attributed to the then-novel decision to blanket the Screen Actors Guild membership with DVDs (since actors constitute the Academy's largest voting body), and after A Better Lifewas the first "for your consideration" screener sent out in 2011, the film's very on-the-bubble Demian Bichir went on to land a Best Actor nomination.

By contrast, Selma was among the last screeners to arrive in voter mailboxes — when it was sent out at all. DuVernay wrapped production on Selma this past summer and first debuted her film at the AFI Film Festival in early November, and although that version looked pretty damn complete, further tweaks and polishes continued for over a month. When Paramount got a final cut of the film in mid-December, studio decision-makers had a tough quandary to ponder: Should they sink money into a raft of screeners for voting bodies like SAG, the Directors Guild, and the Producers Guild — even though weeks-long screener-manufacturing times ensured that most voting periods would be all but over by the time Selma discs were sent out — or should they focus only on sending screeners to the Academy and BAFTA, while scheduling theatrical screenings to serve every other voting group?

Ultimately, Paramount execs felt that the latter strategy was their best option, though the groups that hadn't received screeners continued to snub Selma in the meantime, stalling the film's momentum. Then again, BAFTA failed to nominate Selma, too, and they were one of the rare organizations that did get those discs. Was the studio counting on a want-to-see factor that simply wasn't as enthusiastic as they'd hoped? After all, the Academy's official Selmascreening in December only attracted half the members who went to Into the Woods later that night.

Selma also got screwed just a few days into its release, when it was hit by high-profile inaccuracy charges that it had trouble batting back. Historians and confidantes of Lyndon B. Johnson accused DuVernay of devaluing the president's role in passing the Voting Rights Act, and while the director promptly batted those claims back on Twitter, anti-Selma editorials kept coming. Biopics and historical dramas often have to contend with this sort of thing, but though other contenders like The Imitation Game and American Sniper play fast and loose with their source material, Selma was hit the hardest. The campaign for Selma should have been about making history; instead, the film was forced to re-litigate it.

Today's Selma snubs also happened to come in an Oscar year where all 20 acting nominees were white, and the Academy can't love those optics. It's true that 12 Years a Slave won Best Picture last year, but it may be just as true that some Oscar voters, still recovering from that harrowing picture, were now reluctant to watch another important historical drama about race. Ninety-three percent of Oscar voters are white, and while the Academy is making a concerted effort to diversify its ranks — and is now presided over by its first black president, Cheryl Boone Isaacs — progress has been slow.

In the end, though, I think the main thing that worked against Selma is timing. Had awards been the first thing on the filmmakers' minds, they could have held Selma until 2015, engineering a fall film festival rollout that would have given them more time for word-of-mouth to accrue, more opportunities to introduce David Oyelowo to voters, a bigger window for sending screeners, and more space to dispense with controversies before voting finally began.

But I'm glad they didn't wait. It would have gone against the ethos of the film, after all: King was often coaxed to couch his agenda, but he knew that you must act when you can, as waiting for a more politically favorable window can leave you sitting on your hands forever. With stories like Ferguson and the death of Eric Garner in the news, the lessons of Selma take on greater importance than any trophy can confer, and there can be no question that Selma's moment is now. The film may have been dealt a few blows today, but I have no doubt that history will be good to it: As King himself said, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice."

http://www.vulture.com/2015/01/selma-where-did-its-oscar-campaign-go-wrong.html

 

[FlyRy]

http://www.vulture.com/2015/01/selma-where-did-its-oscar-campaign-go-wrong.html

my man marty been ALL over the net today

 

[MartyMcFly]

my man marty been ALL over the net today

Lol I'm on it breh. Any movie site I go to is talking about it. Between that and the Giants getting their d coordinator finally it's a lot to take in

 

[FlyRy]

Lol I'm on it breh. Any movie site I go to is talking about it. Between that and the Giants getting their d coordinator finally it's a lot to take in

http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/2015-academy-award-nominations-selma/

 

[Mr Rager]

That shyt is not getting any noms breh...Eastwood pulled a J. Edgar and tried to sneak a film in for the Oscars and that shyt is getting ignored

American Sniper not getting a nom huh

 

[kp404]

American Sniper not getting a nom huh

probably the worst movie to be nominated since Crash...the Academy screwed the Pooch this whole year though

 

[andre patton]

I didn't think it was worth it, . It's one of this year's most overrated flicks, but if you're into novelty movies and want to say you saw a movie that was shot over 12 years, then go for it.

Same way I feel. Like I said in the Boyhood review thread...its an average movie with an average script. The acting was good. The novelty of the fact that the actors are the same over the entire 12 years or whatever wears off about an hour into the movie. I give Linklater credit for executing that so well, though. I know its extremely difficult to do that over such a long period of time. I can understand the best director nomination, but it definitely doesnt deserve to win. I can understand the best supporting nominations. But this movie CERTAINLY doesnt deserve a best picture nomination. Doesnt really deserve a Best oRiginal screenplay nomination either, although I can see why it received one.

 

[Jello Biafra]

The only #OscarsSoWhite tweet I'll acknowledge, because of its perfect execution.

Especially when Unbroken's Takamasa "Miyavi" Ishihara could have justifiably been given a Best Supporting Actor nomination.

 

[Jello Biafra]

Yep, he nailed it. However, I think the LBJ controversy shouldn't be downplayed. White critics of the film really went in about the "mischaracterization" of LBJ, and are using it to discredit the entire film.

I knew she was doomed when the LBJ stuff started to grow in force.
The Academy is full of older white liberals who got their panties in a bunch that one of their Democratic icons wasn't treated like a sacred cow and they are punishing DuVernay because of it.

 

[MartyMcFly]

I knew she was doomed when the LBJ stuff started to grow in force.
The Academy is full of older white liberals who got their panties in a bunch that one of their Democratic icons wasn't treated like a sacred cow and they are punishing DuVernay because of it.

Let's not punish all white people though, a lot of them stood up for the movie, including critics

 

[TheGodling]

Let's not punish all white people though, a lot of them stood up for the movie, including critics

For some reason the casual way you said this has me dying.

 

[MartyMcFly]

For some reason the casual way you said this has me dying.

I just woke up so I was in a real calm serine mood. But I also know how this place can get with "cac" this and "cac" that as opposed to actually having a discussion about stuff we tend to just make it black and white (no pun intended)

 

[TheGodling]

I just woke up so I was in a real calm serine mood. But I also know how this place can get with "cac" this and "cac" that as opposed to actually having a discussion about stuff we tend to just make it black and white (no pun intended)

 

[MartyMcFly]

Now here's what I don't want or at least I'd feel funny about it if it happens: What if Selma wins best picture now? The academy isn't deaf or blind and they've no doubt heard all of this from yesterday and even today as it continues. They've got PR people feeding them articles about it being the whitest oscars ever (meaning they'll overcompensate next year, bet that) and all the outrage over Selma not getting any director or best actor love at the least. It's comparable (but not exactly the same) to the backlash that happened when Affleck didn't get a best director nod for Argo and people were confused as hell and Argo ended up getting best picture. Now was that due to the backlash or because they genuinely felt it was the best movie of the bunch nominated? We'll never know although we can speculate, but what if Selma has the same journey? I'm not saying I want it to happen or even think it will but someone on the train this was reading the paper and of course there was an article about it taking the academy to task.