Naked Gold Man: The Pitiable Tradition of The Backlash

Yesterday I was asked by a fellow writer to be quoted on a "who will win?" Oscar piece at another site. I said yes without hesistation but why are we always jumping ahead? We don't even know the nominee list yet! One particular way in which I find it hard to relate to my fellow Oscar pundits and even a lot of kindred spirit movie fans is this: Year after year there seems to be a enthusiasm for and a willingness to concede the race to a presumed frontrunner before nominations are even announced.

This "it's over before it's begun" atmosphere enables, no, encourages hostility and backlash against popular films and performances. The annual Oscar carnival, meant to be a celebration of Hollywood's perception of their own best work, becomes decidedly less magical and fun once the atmosphere turns hostile. It's both more fun and more accurate to view the Academy Awards as a two phase celebration which has numerous winners. In the first phase dozens upon dozens of films and talented individuals compete to find placement in traditionally five-wide shortlists. Several people emerge as winners, drawing attention to films and performances that are sometimes really worth the moviegoer's time. In the second phase the nominees go all Highlander with their golden swords. There can be only one. 

But why rush to the decapitations? 

George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) in "The Artist", a silent film superstar threatened by the "talkie" revolution in Hollywood

The film that has been labelled the winner before its secured a nomination this year is The Artist. Many have already said it's a done deal though nomination ballots don't go out for another 9 days. So the backlash has begun. It's an inevitable fact of frontrunner status as any year teaches us.

On backlashes, nostalgia and scarce originals after the jump

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Detroit Loves "The Artist", Feels "Shame"

After my chat with Judy Greer I've been feeling homesick for Detroit. Or maybe it's just the ghost of Christmases past floating about though I haven't done a Christmas in Michigan in years. So what a perfect day for the Detroit Film Critics to announce their winners! The Artist is no sweeper but it's proving to be a formidable competitor on the critical map. A nice surprise from Detroit is the solid support afforded Shame which took two of the six acting prizes. 

Picture The Artist
Director Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Screenplay Moneyball
Documentary Tabloid

...and the acting prizes
Actress Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn
Actor Michael Fassbender, Shame
Supporting Actress Carey Mulligan, Shame
Supporting Actor Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Breakthrough Performances Jessica Chastain
Ensemble Carnage

How amazing is this ad for SHAME from a UK paper I believe?

Since I used to live in the Detroit area, I know how long it can be before Oscar releases show up there so I read this piece from John Serba on the voting with great interest. Here's what he says about Best Actress:

Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn. A strong candidate in a weak-ish field. Although now that I've seen “Young Adult,” I'd have voted for Charlize Theron over Williams. So it goes."

I weep for the Michiganders who had a weak Best Actress year! This year is just incredible for Best Actress but, alas, many of the best performances were found in tiny films that maybe never made it to the Detroit Metro area or did not get the attention they deserved if they showed their which was probably for one week in one theater. So it goes, indeed.

The members of this organization, which I'm only listing due to Motown kinship, are as follows: Kirk Baird (The Toledo Blade), Jason Buchanan (allmovie.com), Jim Fordyce (MIentertainment.biz), Adam Graham (The Detroit News), Corey Hall (The Metro Times), Tom Long (The Detroit News), Jeff Meyers (The Metro Times), John Monaghan (The Detroit Free Press), Warren Pierce (WJR Radio), Greg Russell (WMYD-TV), James Sanford (The Kalamazoo Gazette), Tom Santilli (Examiner.com), Debbie Schlussel (Sirius Patriot Channel 144’s Mike Church Show), Perry Seibert (allmovieguide.com), John Serba (The Grand Rapids Press), Lee Thomas (WJBK Fox 2), Mike Tyrkus (Cinemanerdz.com), Kirk Vanderbeek (Real Detroit Weekly), Greg Walton (WIOG/KRSP), and Stephanie Webb (WZZM, ABC 13), Chris Williams (Advisor & Source Newspapers), and Rob Worley (Backlot D.) 

DC Critics Love Movies About Movies... And Dogs

This year marked the 10th anniversary for the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association. What a mouthful their name is. Henceforth WAFCA which omits the DC part but they like it that way.  In their very first year they picked an odd duck for Best Picture by way of the Stiff With Prestige Adaptation Road to Perdition but since then they've hewed much closer to Oscar, only giving two top prizes to films that weren't eventually Best Picture nominees or winners (Eternal Sunshine and United 93). This year they went crazy for movies about movies... with dogs.

DC Film Critics are Dog People. The Artist and Hugo win big.

Let me be clear... In no way does my happy photoshopping imply that President Obama is a member of WAFCA though the Obamas are dog friendly. It's just me thinking 'bout DC and the movies.

Here are the WAFCA prizes...

Film The Artist
Director Martin Scorsese, Hugo
Actress Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn
Actor George Clooney, The Descendants
Supporting Actress Octavia Spencer, The Help
Supporting Actor Albert Brooks, Drive

Acting Ensemble Bridesmaids
Adapted Screenplay Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash  The Descendants
Original Screenplay Will Reiser for 50/50
Animated Feature Rango
Documentary Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams 

"Skeletor" is a real healer in Original Screenplay winner 50/50

Foreign Language Film Pedro Almodovar's The Skin I Live In
Art Direction Dante Ferretti and Francesca LoSchiavo for Hugo 
Cinemagotraphy Emmanuel Lubeszki for The Tree of Life
Score Ludovic Bource for The Artist  

The Artist and Hugo are certainly starting the awards season off well. Given that they both opened for the Thanksgiving Holiday does this mean next Thanksgiving we'll see an even larger clusterfuck than this year's insanity?

How long do you think it'll be before one of the critics groups gives the Supporting Actress prize to one or all of the Bridesmaids? Monty didn't totally go for Bridesmaids but then he's not a dog person... er, cat. 

Spirit Awards: "Take Shelter" & "The Artist" Lead the Nominees

The New York Film Critics Circle isn't even finished with its announcements yet and now we've got The Spirit Award nominations. They have the longest lag time between nominations and ceremony since they aren't even held until the day before the Oscars. Like the NYFCC they've been swerving ever closer to Oscar over the years, often championing a runner-up type of candidate like, say, Sideways or Black Swan. That could be good news for The Artist or The Descendants this year depending on which takes the lead in the Oscar race. Though if you believe the nomination tallies here this could be a very big night for Take Shelter.

BEST FEATURE
50/50 (3 noms total) -review
Beginners (4 noms total) -review
Drive (3 noms total) -review
Take Shelter (5 noms total)
The Artist (5 noms total) -review
The Descendants (4 noms total)

I'm super fond of ½ of this lineup and whenever you're super fond of ½ a lineup you should smile. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the way awards season is aiming to go, The Descendants is my least favorite from their preferred lineup.  

FULL LIST OF NOMINEES AFTER THE JUMP

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Do Movies About Movies Win Oscars?

George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) has had it with the movies in "The Artist"Over at Fandor's Keyframe blog I'll be musing about the Oscar race on a biweekly basis. This week's topic is the unusual abundance of movies about movies in this year's Oscar race from Marilyn Monroe (My Week With Marilyn) to George Melies (Hugo) to Hollywood's seismic sound shift in the late 20s (The Artist). But one thing I didn't dwell on too much in the article (which I hope you'll go and read!) is the lack of Oscars won for movies about movies.

Everyone predicting a win for The Artist (2011) before the nominations are even announced should consider the following list and sobering fact: No movie about movies has ever won Best Picture.

Movies About Movies: How Do They Do With Oscar?
(Best Picture Nominees are in red) 

Janet Gaynor (already an Oscar winner) was nominated again for playing an actress who wins a fictional Oscar in "A Star is Born"1930s
What Price Hollywood (1 nomination. 0 wins)
A Star is Born (7 nominations. 1 win + 1 honorary) 

1940s
Was Hollywood too busy with patriotism to make movies about movies? Or were they still too enamored by live theater to turn their cameras on themselves?

1950s
Sunset Blvd  (11 nominations. 3 wins)
The Bad and the Beautiful (6 nominations. 5 wins)
The Star (1 nomination. 0 wins)
Singin' in the Rain (2 nominations. 0 wins)
A Star is Born (6 nominations. 0 wins)

1960s
Sweet Bird of Youth (3 nominations. 1 win)
8 ½ (5 nominations. 2 wins) 
Inside Daisy Clover (3 nominations. 0 wins)
The Oscar (2 nominations. 0 wins)

1970s
Day For Night (4 nominations. 1 win) 
The Way We Were (6 nominations. 2 wins)
The Day of the Locust (2 nominations. 0 wins)
California Suite (3 nominations. 1 win)
All That Jazz (9 nominations. 4 wins) 

1980s
The Stunt Man (3 nominations. 0 wins)
The Purple Rose of Cairo (1 nomination. 0 wins)
The Kiss of the Spider Woman (4 nominations. 1 win)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (6 nominations. 3 wins. 1 special achievement.)
Cinema Paradiso (1 nomination. 1 win) 

Baby Herman (a handful off camera) and Roger Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)... which would have been a worthy Best Picture contender.

1990s
Postcards from the Edge (2 nominations. 0 wins)
Bugsy (10 nominations. 2 wins)
Barton Fink (3 nominations. 0 wins)
Chaplin (3 nominations. 0 wins)
The Player (3 nominations. 0 wins)
Ed Wood (2 nominations. 2 wins)
Boogie Nights (3 nominations. 0 wins)
Gods and Monsters (3 nominations. 1 win) 

Jude Law as Errol Flynn and Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn in "The Aviator"2000s
Shadow of the Vampire (2 nominations. 0 wins)
Mulholland Dr (1 nomination. 0 wins)
Adaptation (4 nominations. 1 win)
The Aviator (11 nominations. 5 wins)
Tropic Thunder (1 nomination. 0 wins)
Nine (4 nominations. 0 wins)
Inglourious Basterds (8 nominations. 1 win) 

2010s
The Artist (we shall see)
My Week With Marilyn (we shall see)
Hugo (we shall see)

A semi-random selection of movies about movies that Oscar ignored: The Cameraman, Man With a Movie Camera, Sullivan's Travels, Stand-In, Peeping Tom, Contempt, Beware of a Holy Whore, F For Fake, The Last Action Hero, Stardust Memories, Blow Out, The Majestic, Irma Vep, Living in Oblivion, Be Kind Rewind, Guilty by Suspicion, Los Angeles Plays Itself,  etc...

You'd think that Hollywood's High Holy Night, which is one big self-congratulatory spectacle, would embrace movies about movies and they do to a point. But perhaps even Hollywood's notoriously fulsome egos feel sheepish about taking it all the way. Do they fear it would be overkill, the back-patting night of nights morphing into something far more orgiastic, a daisy chain of self regard? 

What are your favorite movies about movies? Do you think The Artist can buck the trends here?

Related: my new keyframe article and a previous roundup on Keyframe "top ten films about filmmaking" which I also had the pleasure of contributing to and which should give you plenty of rental ideas.