jgt















..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Kim Voynar
..Michael Wilmington



7 Weeks To Go
Ten Is Good

At this quiet moment, between a rock rippling the voting pond and a hard count of nominees, a moment of reflection on the State of The Oscars.

I couldn’t be happier with the 10 nominee thing.

Sure, it has taken an annual narrow race and made it wider, but still narrow. The group of films we talk about as we get close to nominations has been 2 or 3 titles beyond the 5 nominees to come for years. So now, it’s 10 nominees and maybe 14 titles to pick from, most of which are now in fluid 7 – 10 slots, as opposed to fluid 3 – 5 slots.

None of us reallyreallyreally know what will happen next Tuesday morning. After we “experts” have counted out movies like The Blind Side and The Hangover and Julie & Julia and The Last Station, you know what? They could all be in.

Or they could all be out.

And by my accounting… great.

What the 10 has done, so far, is to open up the thinking of distributors about what is possible. The only $100 million movies that seem to still be in play are Avatar and Inglourious Basterds. Meanwhile, tiny films like The Messenger and A Serious Man remain in play. Unexpected films like District 9, Star Trek, and The Blind Side (Pete Hammond is still on the This Is It bandwagon) are still in play.

But it’s more than who is still in play. It’s the shut-down mentality that comes, especially in a year like this, when you only have the five nominees. Precious, Invictus, Up, and An Education would all be sweating nominations a lot more than they are this weekend in a field of five. Would that be a good thing?

Of course, you could argue, “Why not make it 20 nominees?!” And you would be right. No matter how large the group, someone is going to be disappointed to be left out. In the end, all but one of the nominees will be disappointed.

But it’s about celebrating movies. Regardless of why Precious, for example, slipped from front-runner to also-ran, in terms of the win, I love the idea that the film, with all the passion that has been behind it, will be celebrated in some way. And I am not the film's biggest fan.

I think it really is an honor to be nominated. It really should be a pleasure.

To offer some perspective, I decided to parse our MCN Critics Top Ten Chart as though it was an Oscar nomination vote. Interesting.

First, 24 critics don’t get counted because they voted without numerical preference… which we can’t use for this experiment. That leaves 201 “voters” with a “magic number” for nomination of 19.

The next step is eliminating all ballots without #1 votes. That leaves 52 films from the full list of 239 films. Three film from our Top 30, by average vote, have been eliminated for a lack of #1 votes; Star Trek (#15), The Messenger (#22), and The Road (#28). 27 titles ranked lower than these films are still in play… though pretty obviously, none of them has a chance of being “nominated.” Still, interesting.

And we have our first two nominees; The Hurt Locker, with 35 #1 votes and Up In The Air with 34.

Dropping the lowest ranked films, Enter the Void, Made in the USA, and The Exiles are out, each only having one vote, albeit for #1. But what’s interesting is that the critics who voted for those films will now have their #2 votes included, Star Trek voters, for instance, whose ballots are otherwise out of the system.

That leaves “142 ballots” and a “magic number” of 16.

ROUND TWO - Inglourious Basterds, Up, A Serious Man are "nominated" with #2 votes … but not in that order. Because of the preferential system, Serious is first in, followed by Inglourious, and then Up. It doesn’t matter much, as they are now in with the Top 5. But if it was near the end, it could mean a lot.

Another 53 ballots are out, leaving 79, plus a percentage of the ballots for films that have already been counted, based on how much over the then “magic number” they got in with.

The new magic number is “14.” And we’re counting all the way to the #3s.

ROUND THREE - This round is interesting, as Fantastic Mr Fox, which is #9 on the other version of our list, has only 8 clear votes. But the percentage rule works in its favor as ballots that were eliminated for the first 5 “nominees” just barely cross the magic number of 14.

Precious, with only 3 clear votes does not… nor does any other film.

ROUND FOUR – 71 ballots still in play… magic number is still 14. Counting to the #4s.

This is where is gets a little wild. With 4 slots left, #15 Summer Hours leaps ahead with 9 clear votes. #12 on the weighted list, Where The Wild Things Are leaps ahead with 8 clear votes, followed by #9 Avatar with 7. #13 In The Loop has 5 clear votes. At 4 clear votes are #8 An Education, #10 District 9, and #11 (500) Days of Summer. And both #7 Precious and #16 White Ribbon have 3 clear votes each.

At this point, the competition for the last four slots comes down to the “leftover” votes from ballots that voted #1 - #3 for films that are already “nominated.”

Getting in are #12 Where The Wild Things Are, #7 Precious, and #15 Summer Hours, and #9 Avatar.

(Phew… that was exhausting to do!)

In this small sample, the 1-7 titles by way of weighted ballots got in. Kinda getting the shaft, #8 An Education, #10 District 9, #11 (500) Days of Summer, and #13 In The Loop.

In any case, it will be interesting. And personal taste aside, I can’t really think of a bad way for The Ten to go. See you Tuesday…

January 14 Charts
Best Picture | Director
Actor | Supporting Actor
Actress | Supporting Actress

January 28, 2010
- by David Poland


 

 

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