Pt 2. Oscar Editorials to Make the Blood Boil: The Holiday Glut
Saturday, December 5, 2015 at 5:00PM Two recent trade editorials have driven us crazy enough to write long hair-pulling screeds in response. We're bald now! The first was a 'dishonorable' defense of our #1 gripe Category Fraud and we'll be quicker about this one which is about our second biggest pet peeve of Oscar season: 'the holiday glut' aka the ghettoization of adult movies into the final quarter of each year.
The Hollywood Reporter's "Everybody Cannibalized Each Other" - Harvey Weinstein
Weinstein begins his guest editorial by calling the final quarter glut of awards-hopefuls a "pet peeve" which is fine if we say it... but him?!? He championed it for 20 years with his own actions!
Carol is actually set around Christmas time. A late year release that actually feels justified for a change
He writes...
The fall has become...so top-heavy with adult-driven awards releases that it has made it almost impossible for quality films to reach their full potential unless they dare release at another time of year, where they are quickly forgotten come awards season.
That's true. But Weinstein's Miramax and Weinstein Co history popularized the 'wait until the last quarter' and it did so at the expense of richer films from other studios that were released earlier in those years. Over the years other distributors have copied his methods and we have this exact problem of late year glut which he now calls "a dangerous track"...
We're all going for the same audience... and because of that no one is able to make a huge impression.
That's partially true but it's hard to read this, knowing the source, and not feel that he just isn't happy that he's now forced to share the strategies he pioneered. Now that he sometimes loses the competions.
Weinstein's Miramax and then later his Weinstein Co, regularly landed nominations for last second release patterns that he's complaining about in this piece. The strategy is actually ideal for films that are fast fades but have the air of prestige. Films that would not have devoured so many nominations or any at all if people had had the opportunity to truly weigh them. We're speaking of trifles or artistic partial-misfires like Cider House Rules (Dec 17th, 1999), Chocolat (Dec 22nd, 2000), Gangs of New York (Dec 20th, 2002), Cold Mountain (Dec 25th, 2004), The Reader (Dec 12th, 2008), Nine (Dec 18th, 2009), The Iron Lady (Dec 30th, 2011), August: Osage County (Dec 27th, 2013). Etcetera...
When Weinstein begins to sing the praises of films from other studios that were released earlier this year that don't seem to be in play like Far From the Madding Crowd, it's kind of lovely. But then the love curdles. It's just an elaborate setup to push his own movies. He turns his complaints about the system he engineered into a free FYC ad for his own movies.
I've released two films in the "off season" this year, Woman in Gold and Southpaw, that feature unbelievable lead performances from Helen Mirren and Jake Gyllenhaal, respectively, both worthy of all the adulation and respect they received from critics and audiences at the time of their release — but because of the stigma of their release dates, aren't taken as seriously as they should be.
The only thing "unbelievable" about Helen Mirren's work in Woman in Gold is how phoned-in it was. Even by her standards! Tatiana Maslany is running circles around her as the younger version of the character. As with controversies about the lack of female directors getting work or the lack of people of color nominated for Oscars, you undermine righteous arguments when you use less than deserving examples.
I can't even get into the bit where he defends Rooney Mara's category fraud for Carol
I know there’s been controversy ...we decided, for the good of the movie, that we had to play as a team with this one.
Play as a team? That's what Cate & Rooney do so spectacularly in the movie. That is not what lying about the size of Rooney Mara's role is doing. Don't pretend that Cate carried it alone. This is a duet from the very start to the very finish. If the Weinstein Co were 'playing as a team' with Carol they'd realize that the perpetually employed but still underappreciated Sarah Paulson is a spectacular character actress worthy of a campaign herself but you've shoved her to the side like she's meaningless because you'd like both of your leading ladies to win Oscars. This is virtually the opposite of playing as a team.
But back to release schedules. Harvey helped create the giant year-end monster and now objects to its enormous appetite and the beautiful little gardens it tramples on it hunt for Oscars.
Still, for the sake of the industry, I'd like to know that if we released Carol in August or Hateful Eight in July, we could have the same results while spreading out the marketplace.
Then try it! Don't just ask other distributors to get out of your way in December because you didn't release these films in the summer.
Harvey than asks pundits and writers to champion early releases vigorously which is a reasonable request. We do that all the time here. But it is unfortunately true that media types call things Oscar worthy all the time and then don't ever bring them up again at the end of the year when the new shiny toys arrive.
Then Harvey is back to his side of the screen...
As distributors, we need to continue releasing smart and bold films year-round.... Otherwise, our worst fears will be realized, with intelligent, daring adult dramas marginalized and cannibalized, and nothing but tentpoles left in their wake.
Weinstein is absolutely right about the dangers of ghettoizing adult films into the final quarter. But you know that old saying "Don't shoot the messenger!"? What if the message is just fine but it's the messenger that's dubious?
Reader Comments (39)
Thank you so much for your paragraph about Weinstein killing Sarah Paulson's campaign. I hope against hope she pulls a Marcia Gay Harden-Pollock nomination (a win seems impossible but who knows). And yes, this message would be a lot more impactful if it didn't feel like he was asking other people to do it more than following his own advise.
Shame Lionel Barrymore isn't around anymore to play Harvey Weinstein in a biopic. Very few actors can/could pull off vile and sleazy as well as he did.
You're a genius Carmen Sandiego
I hate him so much.
Applause Nat,what well thought out observations,he did create it.
December release for Carol? Not even! For us non-Los Angelenos and non-New Yorkers in the heartland we won't be getting it until January 25! And this movie has been kicking around since last spring's Cannes Film Festival! We'll be getting Joy, The Revenant and The Hateful Eight before we get it.
Ken -- well. it should have started early enough to be nationwide for Christmas! i feel your pain. I have been in NYC for 17 years but i remember well the pain of waiting and waiting in smaller markets.
"...we decided, for the good of the movie, that we had to play as a team with this one...."
The correct figure of speech: "We decided that Rooney had to take one for the team on this one."
I would include what I consider 2 of the worst supporting actress winners ever as 2 of Harvey's most foul campaigns: Renee Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones. The former being utterly unwatchable and unintentionally hilarious, and the second arguably a perfect case of early Harvey category fraud. But we should remember the first Miramax acting winners, Brenda Fricker and Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot. Without Miramax, and some early Critics awards, we may not have had the chance to see those 2 defeat the popcorn choices the Globes made that year: Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts. So, anything Harvey says (as well as some of the posturing of other Oscar "historians") should be taken VERY lightly.
ken s - I feel your pain. My market is not at the top of the food chain, but not at the bottom. But it's still worthwhile to remember that while we may have to wait, a movie like Carol is lucky to be given the care that TWC is giving its expansion - especially with a lot of movies dying at the box office. It's a slowww expansion, but that might mean more eyeballs in the long run.
To be fair, I think a big part of the delayed releases has less to do with fear of being ignored by the actual awards and more to do with the potential profits of opening while in the midst of award season. For example, one wonders if Steve Jobs would have had the same box office awards if it had tried to open wide around Christmas after it had already haven gotten a bunch of critics awards and Golden Globe nomination (assuming it would have gotten those, which it would have had a better chance of getting if it weren't tainted by the box office).
Ha - yes, the part where he praises other studio's films and performances was lovely until he revealed his real intentions. Oh well.
I basically agree with everything you say here.
Amen to all of this. There's very little reward to being part of an audience for interesting, grown-up movies these days. You have nine to ten months of the year when there's little if anything worth seeing. In the final months of the year, you get slammed. As an Awards season enthusiast, I used to try to see as much as I could before The Oscars. Now, I don't even bother - the only people I know these days who attempt to see everything are the people who get screeners. In other words, an Awards Season celebrating a medium that formerly existed as a populist, mass market art form has become an elite, insider pursuit that effectively excludes any non-card-carrying members from participation. Regular people of the non-screener class (about 99.9 percent of the moviegoing public) have limited amounts of time, energy and money - especially during the holidays - and since the distributors have so successfully transformed Oscar-watching for regular folks like me into a slog and a chore, they've lost a substantial portion of my business. It's been a few years now since I even saw all the nominated performances in advance of the Oscars, and I don't expect that to change at any point in the near future.
If it's memorable, people will talk about it. The Grand Budapest Hotel and Boyhood were spring/early summer releases last year. Perhaps Woman in Gold and Southpaw aren't that memorable.
Harvey ain't shit. He's one of the worst culprits of the "Holiday Oscar Glut" with his neverending thirst for Oscars. Bye, Felicia!
Nathaniel, do you remember either last year or the end of the year before when Carol was officially-officially announced, and I LITERALLY said: "I'm already sad because I know Rooney Mara will be pushed supporting and ruin Sarah Paulson's chances at any traction." Lol. How right I was.
Though I will say, though Sarah was good in the film, there wasn't much to do, so she isn't nomination worthy in my opinion (but in 12 Years A Slave, heck yeah).
Either way, I finally saw Carol earlier this week and Rooney and Cate are both great and clearly leads.
Hell, Sarah Paulson said as much when Nathaniel interviewed her.
Harvey's self serving posturing is definitely a turnoff.
re: Joseph W
Great point. The Hurt Locker was also a spring release. And it's not as if Harvey invented the late year release - that's been going on forever. But he's the guy that turned it into the only time to release adult oriented films.
Thank you, finally somebody actually calling out the complete and utter bullshit of this op-ed instead of "wow, Harvey gets it!" backpatting. The bit about actually giving Carol and Hateful Eight early release dates made me laugh. He truly is just trying to get other films out of the way.
Completely agreeable with your write-up. Harvey Weinstein seems to be the pot calling the kettle black. And it's quite infuriating how he treated The Immigrant , Macbeth and also Sarah Paulson who has being discarded like a ragdoll. I hope the Academy would wake up and nominate her.
Oh, the infinite cynicism!
Well done. If there is ever a time to play-by-play cut down someone for what they've written it is CERTAINLY in this case: rich and powerful hypocrite intervenes in an arena that is not his own (journalism) to call out other people for doing what he does. Few things are worse than people who say that they're not the problem when they are the problem. And saying that Mara is playing for the team on this one is really just a nicer way of saying "I told that spoiled actress not to be a princess about it" which is just total no. Because what could be worse than a woman who says: this is representative of the work I did and I will stand by it?
Sadly, when Viola did it (campaigning lead instead of supporting) it certainly cost her the Oscar (not that she didn't 100% deserve to win in lead-but she would have easily beaten Spencer). But that just proves the point in a way: if Davis went supporting, Spencer wouldn't have won (in the correct category!) and Chastain probably wouldn't have been nominated. Playing for the team must certainly mean being honest and making room for everyone. Plus Viola got mad industry and popular respect for campaigning as she did. It became a classic "how could they?!" Oscar moment. And it's no doubt lit a fire under her (or added fuel to the existing one) to get that damn Oscar anyway. Such ambition, justified by hard work and talent, should be rewarded and celebrated, not stifled in the name of "playing for the team" (safely and selfishly).
I hate The Holiday Glut. I hate watching all the good movies in two weeks.
Thanks for this post !!!! I agree 100 % i can't stand the sight of him anymore, because he ruined so much great film's careers like James Grey's Two Lovers and The Immigrant for example (and he's doing it again with Macbeth). Just because he released to Oscar hopefuls (by his standards) earlier this year he thinks he can lecture the rest of the industry. But the truth is Woman in Gold and Southpaw were not good enough for Oscar season and he knew it (reviews were only so-so and neither Mirren nor Gyllenhaal -both of whom i love so much ... in other, better movies- were Oscar worthy in my opinion).
Thanks for this post !!!! I agree 100 % i can't stand the sight of him anymore, because he ruined so much great film's careers like James Grey's Two Lovers and The Immigrant for example (and he's doing it again with Macbeth). Just because he released to Oscar hopefuls (by his standards) earlier this year he thinks he can lecture the rest of the industry. But the truth is Woman in Gold and Southpaw were not good enough for Oscar season and he knew it (reviews were only so-so and neither Mirren nor Gyllenhaal -both of whom i love so much ... in other, better movies- were Oscar worthy in my opinion).
Just saw Carol for the second time. I liked Sarah Paulson the first time round, but she blew my mind on second viewing. Somebody please get that FYC campaign going stat!
In fact all four key performances are note-perfect (or very nearly so, in Mara's case) and my former lifelong-enemy Blanchett very possibly deserves another Best Actress gold medal (I can't quite make up my mind between her and my beloved Bel Powley).
The weather/time of year in a movie does play a big part in my overall enjoyment. Iron Man 3 was set during Christmas and I felt really awkward watching that movie in the middle of the summer (like we just escaped Christmas season and now it's back? We haven't even had July 4th yet).
His faux-consternation is laughable. The least he could do is acknowledge that he helped create a monster and then do more than just platitudes to atone for his sins. Oh, and by the way, Helen Mirren was *not* "unbelievable in Woman in Gold; she was merely serviceable. He can't even get that right, the fucker.
1. Chris - yes, I'm in a "medium" market, too (Columbus, Ohio pop. 1.3 million), so at least Carol WILL come here. And 45 Years isn't scheduled until February! Basically all the acclaimed English-language and most of the acclaimed foreign films do get here - even if it's on one screen for one week only one showing per day, so arranging my schedule around seeing something obscure can be a challenge. I mean, how do you get people to see something as wonderful as The Second Mother, when it'll be gone in 3 days and will only be showing in the afternoon, when a lot of people, you know, have to work.
2. It isn't Rooney taking one for the team, it's Sarah Paulson (maybe she can look up Teri Garr and they can commiserate with each other). Anyway, if Sarah Paulson can be ignored for her brilliant performance in 12 Years a Slave (best performance in the whole movie), she can be ignored for this one, too
3. Actually, I won't complain about the November-to-February glut. It's the other 8 months that suck.
Josh R, you took the words out of my mouth!
Oh, and this was a great post, Nathaniel. You hit every nail on the head. This is like if Putin wrote an article about how terrible national aggression and belligerence are and how we should all agree to knock it off and why are we doing it in the first place.
ken s - wait! Are you in Cbus too?
You gotta wonder about the mental stability of a guy this delusional and hypocritical. Maybe he should have played Violet Weston.
Yup. See you at the Wexner Center Dec 12 at The Assassin.
ken s - Seeing it Thurs or Fri with a friend
Juliette Binoche in The English Patient. Another Miramax project. I'm glad that she won, but is she really Supporting?
If they shove Mara into the category, voters can't be sheep and vote for what he tells them to.
Chris - I'm out of town right now so I can't see it until I get back on Saturday. The program for the next few weeks doesn't interest me much until Rivette's Out 1 in February. In the meantime, looks like major Gateway action, with diversions to the Lenox
Michael Caine in The Cider House Rules (Miramax) over Haley Joel Ostem/The Sixth Sense???
Michael Caine in The Cider House Rules (Miramax) over Haley Joel Ostem/The Sixth Sense???