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 

Truth in Advertising. FYC Ads

I had a hankering for some truth-telling. Sometimes I wish all advertising would just tell it like it is. Wrap a golden lasso 'round all marketing departments and see what bursts forth. Herewith my (photoshopped) reinterpretation of two recent FYC ads: Roger Deakins who has yet to win and Oscar and Dame Helena Bonham Carter Burton:

What fun!

If only I had time to do this for every FYC ad. How do you think this year's nominees should be advertised?

P.S. This post was inspired by The Shiznit's  amusing slideshow of truth-in-advertising posters for this year's Best Picture nominees currently hosted by The Wrap since The Shiznit is down. Here are my two favorites from their photoshop fun: 127 Hours and Winter's Bone.

Though their takes on Toy Story 3 and Black Swan are also keepers.

What If There Were Five...?

The thought occurred to me early this morning when perusing the Oscar lists that we may have perhaps been wrong about which five films were in leading position. Last year for example the top five were tremendously clear; had there been only five nominees as had been the way of it for five decades plus, you would have been left with Basterds, Locker, Precious, Avatar and Up in the Air.

which movie came in 5th? which was 6th?

But this year, do we know? It's an indulgent question but what is Oscar-fanaticism but indulgent conversations about things one can never know the final truth of. Like who came in 6th? who was snubbed on purpose? who wasn't really snubbed but justmissed?

COMMENT TOPIC: Which five do you think it was? I think we can safely assume that The Fighter, The Social Network, True Grit and The King's Speech would have been there given their big nomination tallies. But then... 

Black Swan could have held the 'lone director' spot since its nomination tally was smaller than expected. Inception could have been there without Nolan like another summer director-driven genre blockbuster Jaws without its fabled auteur. Could #5 have been Toy Story 3 or even The Kids Are All Right? Your theories please!

Countdown With Us...

Now you can always know how far away Hollywood's High Holy Night is. This clock is counting down to Oscar's red carpet arrivals on Sunday February 27th, 2011 and you can embed it on your own blog or webspace. [If you already embedded it, do nothing since the clock has automatically change. And pssst, maybe on Oscar night it'll start counting down to next year's nominations. Ya never know!].

Oscar night is Second Christmas (First Christmas being Oscar nomination morn'. See all related posts here.) Plus if you ever get lonely for Santa Claus The Film Experience's company you can click on it and come straight here. Wheeeee.

Happy countdown to all.