Golden Release Dates

Anyone who has read the Film Experience for very long knows that one of Nathaniel's pet issues is the weirdly blocked distribution/awards calendars. Counterprogramming seems like anathema to Hollywood. Most pundits ignore this, either because they're fine with the system the way it is or they have their own pet issues to attend to. But year after year it makes me crazy. So as a sanity measure, I do charts!

If I were only a little more organized the charts would mean a lot more in terms of comparisons sake.

Common consensus has it that the best time to release an Oscar contender is in December. That's true. But as with most "truths" it's not the whole story and thus misleading. It distorts the perception of other truths like the fact that summer is not a bad time to release a big Oscar contender, particular those with commercial appeal. Like many other common consensus beliefs, the December is everything belief is self-reinforcing so one never knows if it is actually true or if it's true because studios think it is and therefore hold their mainstream prestige pictures. The new traditions are so established now that it would certainly be a shock if there were another year like 1972 where the two big dogs (Cabaret and The Godfather) were both released before the previous year's Oscars were even held! Could you imagine if you saw 2011's biggest Oscar contenders in theaters before Oscar night on the 27th?!

On the chart below you can see that the 83rd Oscars are very November/December heavy. Last year's race was less weighted toward the holidays with only 4 of the nominees arriving in the last two months (Blind Side, Precious, Avatar and Up in the Air) earning 23 nominations between them. This year there were five (127, King's, Swan, Fighter, Grit) hogging 40 nominations. And that was just the Best Pictures.

For this chart I used all categories but the shorts. As you can see, my biggest pet peeve (one week qualifiers or the lack of any regular release required) is not the disadvantage I always pray it will be. Why do I pray for this? Because I believe that movies are for audiences first and foremost. If the audience is not allowed to see a movie, should Oscar voters so readily accept its existence? (I always wonder why this isn't part of the whole "Oscar's are irrelevant because they don't choose hits" argument. Perhaps it's too nuanced. It's not as catchy as "they ignored blockbusters!" to say "they have nominated movies the public wasn't allowed to see!) This year's Oscar roster contains as many nominations for barely qualifying films as it does from films released from January through May combined. Sad.

Though Winter's Bone, Animal Kingdom and The Kids Are All Right started Oscar buzz at Sundance in January 2010 and kept it going for a year (all received acting nominations), the first actual theatrical release to wrap up the annum with a nomination was the poorly reviewed remake The Wolfman (Best Makeup). Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland was the first multiple nominee released (March) and holds the distinction of being the most-nominated film outside of the Best Picture contenders with three (all in visual categories). This particular distinction used to be an exciting/interesting one but with 10 Picture nominees one doubts it will be that interesting going forward. Last year Nine (2009) held the honor with four nominations.

If you had an Oscar contender to push would you start early to get your nominee track firmly dug or would you risk the glut of the holidays hoping for a good sprint toward the gold in the thick of it. It's a tortoise or hare situation. Here are the months the last 10 winners chose.

2009 The Hurt Locker (June) *the year we started getting ten nominees
2008 Slumdog Millionaire (November)
2007 No Country For Old Men (November)
2006 The Departed (October)
2005 Crash (May)
2004 Million Dollar Baby (Dec)
2003 Return of the King (Dec) *the year the Oscars moved from March to February
2002 Chicago (Dec)
2001 A Beautiful Mind (Dec)
2000 Gladiator (May)

This year we're looking at an October (TSN) or a November winner (TKS) unless The Fighter has more underdog spirit in it that anyone is anticipating.

12+ Nominations. An Elite Club Gets a New Member.

How many films have been nominated for 12 or more Oscars in their calendar year? Only 25 across the eighty-three years of Oscar history. The King's Speech is the latest initiate of this very exclusive bunch. The films, along with their number of noms/wins, in chronological order are...

• Gone With the Wind (1939) -13/8
• Mrs. Miniver (1942) -12/6  
• The Song of Bernadette (1943) -12/4
• Johnny Belinda (1948) -12/1
• All About Eve (1950) -14/6
• A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) -12/4
• From Here To Eternity (1953) -13/8
• On the Waterfront (1954) - 12/8 
• Ben Hur (1959) -12/11  
• My Fair Lady (1964) -12/8 
• Becket (1964) - 12/1 
• Mary Poppins (1964) -13/5
• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) -13/5
• Reds (1981) -12/3
• Dances With Wolves (1990) -12/7 
• Schindler's List (1993) -12/7 
• Forrest Gump (1994) -13/6 
• The English Patient (1996) -12/9 
• Titanic (1997) -14/11 
• Shakespeare in Love (1998) -13/7
• Gladiator (2000) -12/5 
• The Lord of the Ring: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) -13/4
• Chicago (2003) -13/6
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) -13/3
• The King's Speech (2010) -12/???

 

Biggest Winner Among the Nom' Gobblers:
Ben-Hur nearly made a clean sweep, winning all its categories but Adapted Screenplay which went to the romantic drama Room at the Top instead. Ben-Hur is tied with Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King with most wins of all time... but curiously enough of the three-top Oscar earners only the fantasy epic made a clean sweep of it winning in every single one of its categories.

Biggest Loser Among the Nom' Gobblers:
Johnny Belinda which took home only one Oscar for best actress (Jane Wyman). Beckett also took home only one prize but it had a huge disadvantage in that 1964 was the most monotonous year ever nomination-wise with three (!) films clearing the obscene 12 nom hurdle. Most years don't even get one film that dominant. My Fair Lady and Mary Poppins in an infamous singing duel to the death devoured 13 Oscars between them. Supercalifragilisticexpialadocious!

CHARTS
But what you really want to know his how many of them won Best Picture, don'tcha? Well, I bolded them above so that's 15 of the 25... with 1 undetermined.

So let's do a pie chart...

God I love pie charts. And pies.
[Tangent: omg. I gotta start thinking about the Oscar party menu]

What does all this mean for The King's Speech?
Well, you'll be the judge of that in the comments, won't you? If you're just eyeballing those pie charts, and not really think about the particulars of this race , the likeliest scenario is that The King's Speech wins Best Picture and four to five other Oscars. But that seems like a lot, doesn't it? With a film as strong as The Social Network hanging around.

Before this rather shocking tally (seriously sound mixing, and cinematography???) most armchair and professional pundits assumed it was heading to only two sure wins: Actor & Screenplay with a lot of competition coming for its expected nominations in Costuming and Art Direction. But given the charts above -- not too mention the 12 nominations -- I'd say we underestimated its pull. Can it steal Best Picture from The Social Network? That would be Grand Theft Oscars.

Related Reading: Best Pictures From the Outside In
and current Oscar Race articles 

Top Ten: Surprise Nominations

Michael C. here from Serious Film for Tuesday Top Ten.

The great contradiction of awards season is that there is nothing spectators enjoy more than a surprise yet that doesn't stop anyone from doing everything but pick through the trash of Academy members looking for clues that might help in divining their choices. The truth is that film awards, like presidential elections or tomorrow's weather, are not all that difficult to predict once you know a few basics. That's what makes genuine shockers such a rare treat.

So, with the Golden Globe winners suggesting a year of easy calls across the board and the BAFTA nominees giving tiny flickers of hope to a few longshot candidates (particular in the actress categories), let's dive into past out-of-the-blue choices with the ten most surprising Oscar nominations and see if they hint at any rays of hope for this year's long shots.

     Ten Most Surprising Recent Oscar Nominations

Michael Shannon (2008) Supporting Actor

People talk a lot about momentum and popular films having coattails when it comes to supporting performances. There is truth to this, but in the end sometimes it's better to simply give a killer performance. This was the case when those predicting Dev Patel would take this slot due to Slumdog fever turned out to be wrong and the nomination instead went to Michael Shannon's brief, explosive performance in Revolutionary Road. Social Network contenders Andrew Garfield and Justin Timberlake no doubt hope that their film's frontrunner status is enough to keep any dark horses from sprinting past them at the finish line.

Letters From Iwo Jima (2006) Picture

Part two of Clint Eastwood's WWII double feature (immediately following Flags of Our Fathers) got nominated despite subtitles, minimal precursor attention, and tiny box office. It took the slot universally expected to go to Dreamgirls proving that all the prerelease hype in the world can't land a Best Picture nomination if voters simply don't go for a film - a lesson Clint learned three years late with Invictus. 

Ed Norton (1998) Lead Actor

In this awards race, SAG (the Screen Actors Guild) ignored Ed Norton's intense work in American History X for the more conventional choice of Joseph Fiennes in Shakespeare in Love. The switch on the Oscar ballot was undoubtedly an example of Norton doing well with Oscar's system of weighted ballots, with an extremely passionate fan base pushing him over the top of more widely seen choices. Actors like Tilda Swinton or Ryan Gosling with similarly strong supporters might find themselves the beneficiary of this system come the morning of the 25th.

Samantha Morton and Djimon Hounsou (2003) Lead Actress, Supporting Actor

In America was looking like a sentimental also-ran after neither of these actors landed SAG or Golden Globe nominations. Just goes to show that certain late bloomers can hit the Academy sweet spot without making much of a ripple in the early stages of awards season. Hopefully, that means contender's like Another Year's Lesley Manville have more of a shot than the odds suggest.

Troy (2004) Costumes

This entry could just as easily be The Village's Best Score nomination from the same year. It's to the credit of the Academy's smaller branches that they've shown a willingness to stray outside the frontrunners to pick out quality work in otherwise forgettable projects. Are there any standout elements from otherwise off-the-radar 2010 films that could pop up unexpectedly? The nicely realized costumes from Centurion spring to mind.

The Secret of Kells (2009) Best Animated Film

The nomination of this beautiful, obscure Irish animated fable is a strong reminder that when the voters actually watch all the eligible films in a category, the conventional wisdom falls by the wayside pretty quick. Imagine if actors could only vote for Best Actress if they could prove they've seen Blue Valentine, I Am Love and Another Year? I dream, I know. As far as eligible animated contenders this year, I've heard My Dog Tulip is incredibly moving and Idiots and Angels is a feature from beloved animator Bill Plympton, a guy who certainly has some fans in the animation branch. Look out for those two.

The Reader (2008) Picture

This shocker is going to have reverberations for years to come. When Stephen Daldry's sober drama side-swiped The Dark Knight out of its expected Best Picture nod the Academy panicked, expanding the Best Picture field to ensure that small independent films wouldn't lead them down the road to obsolescence. The only lesson to draw from this - Oscar voters still don't dig superheroes, especially when there's a film with Nazis available - doesn't exactly apply this year, although the snub has granted Christopher Nolan "overdue" status that can only help Inception.

Mike Leigh (2004) Director

The lone director slot has become something of an Oscar tradition over the years with the director's branch making sure to recognize deserving auteurs whose films are too out of the mainstream for the big prize. Examples range from David Lynch in '01 back to such icons as Akira Kurosawa in '85 and Fellini four separate times. I selected Mike Leigh because these lone directors are usually not that hard to spot - a couple of people, including Nathaniel right here, saw Almodovar coming in '02 - but nobody picked up on any buzz for Vera Drake outside Imelda Staunton. If voters heard how hard Blue Valentine's Derek Cianfrance fought for years to get his film made he might be the latest member of this very exclusive club.

Keisha Castle Hughes (2003) Lead Actress

Even if people generally agree that a category designation is false it still tends to stick. My guess is that most voters would rather go with the inaccurate classification than risk wasting their vote by swimming against the current. This wasn't the case in '03 when to everyone's amazement Oscar voters plucked this child actress's performance in Whale Rider out of the supporting category where it was nominated by SAG and promoted it to the big leagues. The parallel to 2010 is all too obvious so I will merely say that the leading ladies should watch their back for a precocious 14-year old armed with her father's revolver and the Coen brothers' dialogue. 

City of God (2003) Director, Screenplay, Editing, Cinematography

These four out-of-nowhere nominations for Fernando Meirelles's Brazilian crime epic are the kind that give hope to followers of the gaudy circus that is Oscar season. They suggest that voters will not only go out of their way to see small films of quality, but will remember them from early in the year and then ignore the frontrunners to vote for them in sufficient numbers to make a difference. It gives free rein to imagine your dark horse favorite isn't totally out of it. Maybe an out-of-the-blue Best Picture nod for I Am Love or Somewhere this year? I wouldn't bet on it, but look at those four nominations again before you tell me it's impossible.

Famous Amos Linkies

Movie Stuffs
Because that's what we like best.

Cam Gigandet's Cookies

• A Socialite's Life celebrates Cam Gigandet's Burlesque nude scene with hilariously blurry photos. (seriously, why even bother?).
• Cineuropa on the big Danish weekend in Hollywood. I hadn't even made that Scandinavian connection yet.
• Social Network Daily I mean Awards Daily... oops. Has a nifty chart illustrating the unprecedented dominance of The Social Network this awards season. Only Brokeback Mountain came this close,  although we know how that ended.
• Serious Film's Most Anticipated Movies of 2011
• My New Plaid Pants celebrates Jim Carrey's birthday, claims he saw him first in 1985's Once Bitten. Sorry, got you beat JA. I watched Duck Factory (1984) WHILE IT WAS AIRING because as a kid I wanted to be an animator, y'see?

Off Cinema
Because once in a while you should rest your eyes... by, uh, looking at other stuff.

• Design Work Life "Dancers Among Us" really cool photo series.
• Bully's Comics "If I Wrote Aquaman" Maybe you have to be a comics nerd to love this but I do.
• People It's official. Anne Hathaway to play Chris Colfer's lesbian aunt on Glee. Hey, if they won't make movie musicals, at least we have Glee for better and worse. Sometimes worse sure but at least.

Okay enough of that!
Back to the movies. Or at least the Golden Globes.

• Vulture has a funny "Best Celebrity Reaction Shots" slideshow from the show last night including La Pfeiffer's traditionally icy hostility. We love her for it. Actually we think Pfeiffer is probably not at all hostile. That's just her face. It's always been so sharp she will cut you.

Reminder: 11 Days...

Two point of business. Two goodies.

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LIVE-BLOG
Yes, I'll be live blogging the BFCA Critics Choice Awards tonight (we'll start about a quarter to 9:00 PM) and the Globes on Sunday. If you're not hosting your own party, be here for this one.

GOODIES!
Just a reminder that we've got two handy-dandy widgets for you to embed in your own personal webspaces if you'd like. (You can see both on the sidebar if this post should mysteriously vanish of you decide to use them later). Both will take you here should you click on them if you see something of interest or just have a jones to visit. Daily. You come every day, right? [/NEEDINESS]

Countdown
The day after the Oscar nominations, this clock below will shift and beginning counting down to our favorite holiday, Hollywood's High Holy Night... THE OSCARS! And the day after that historic night (provided enough of you download this to make it worth my while) it'll shift to countdown to next year's Oscar nominations. [Translation: We're all crazy!]

The Film Experience
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