We had another article that suggested that the Oscars do more harm than good, which reminded me of this one. Namely, that the voters who decide on the animation awards might be woefully unfit for making such decisions.
The article states it best:
Imagine a world where the most high-profile animation awards were selected by individuals who had neither working knowledge nor appreciation of the animation art form.
In this world, a voter would pick the best animated short based solely on whether the film contained a dog in it or not.
In this world, a voter would identify the Irish film Song of the Sea and the Japanese film The Tale of The Princess Kaguya as “Chinese fuckin’ things,” not watch either film, and still cast a vote for the best animated feature of the year.
In this world, a voter would give a visual effects award to a film not because the film’s vfx met a certain standard of achievement, but “just to kind of recognize it.”
Keep in mind that this is just a informal survey of seven voters, but perhaps it indicates a larger problem?
Related Stories
As you may have heard, last night was the Oscars -- Hollywood's favorite back-patting celebration. However, as a recent study found, films that were nominated for Oscars saw the number of unauthorized downloads and streams surge ( http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31535132 ), as people wanted to make sure they had seen these celebrated films.
Films like American Sniper and Selma saw a massive increase in unauthorized downloads after being nominated. The company that did this study, Irdeto, argues that these unauthorized downloads represent a major loss for the films' producers -- but it seems like there's another explanation: the MPAA really ought to be targeting the Oscars for encouraging infringement.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday February 26 2015, @10:56PM
There is no real purpose to these things, aside from mutual masturbation by the "stars" and celebrities. They stroke each other's egos, and America tunes in to watch.
I truly can't remember how long it's been since I watched any awards ceremony. I think it was an AMA thing, something to do with country music. The celebs were mostly people that I actually kinda like, but the whole ceremony just seemed so contrived. I got sick of it, and went off to do something more meaningful. Can't remember what that was now - maybe I sorted my socks or something.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 26 2015, @11:23PM
mod parent up!
i love folding socks.
There should be a folding@home socks project!
(Score: 4, Funny) by PartTimeZombie on Friday February 27 2015, @12:41AM
There is if you come to my house.
Also washing@car and cleaning@bathroom.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday February 27 2015, @12:01AM
There is no real purpose to these things, aside from mutual masturbation by the "stars" and celebrities. They stroke each other's egos, and America tunes in to watch.
You talking about how we/they vote for the oscars or how we vote for the politicians? Just wondering.
(Score: 3, Funny) by ikanreed on Friday February 27 2015, @02:20PM
Unfortunately, elections have consequences, in spite of their banality. Celebrity-worshiping award shows have no consequences, except for the answers to the worst trivial pursuit category.
(Score: 1) by PartTimeZombie on Friday February 27 2015, @12:45AM
It does all seem a bit pointless doesn't it?
Movies are not the same as sports, I can count the number of points Team A has scored, and know that they beat Team B, but a movie I thought was awesome when I was 12 is probably completely unwatchable now that I'm an adult.
The Oscars are just some people's opinions, just because they work (or used to work in some cases) in the movie business does not mean they have any special knowledge about movies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 27 2015, @12:53AM
So you're taking the position that animated dogs don't deserve awards but good sock folders do? What kind of monster are you?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 27 2015, @04:24AM
My guess? A non-animated one eyed one [rottentomatoes.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 26 2015, @11:05PM
The Lego Movie was snubbed. Big Hero 6 wasn't bad.
Guardians of the Galaxy or Dawn of the Planet of the Apes for visual effects? Fuck off. Interstellar deserved the win not just for looking great, but producing peer-reviewed science [telegraph.co.uk].
(Score: 5, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Friday February 27 2015, @12:46AM
Is there a category for "Most Accurate Science"? Because if not you're basically the same as the people in the summary misusing categories.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 27 2015, @01:39AM
And yet Interstellar did in fact win the Visual Effects Oscar, as I, Anonymous Coward, predicted.
As we all know by now Oscar nominations and wins are arbitrary. You can get one for being dead or having been snubbed a lot. There may be bribes behind the scenes and there was talk of studios not aggressively promoting certain films (you have to submit to be considered).
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Friday February 27 2015, @04:07PM
Where's the "+1 Oh no you just didn't" mod
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday February 27 2015, @04:50PM
+1 Touche' applies pretty well in this case.
(Score: 2) by The Archon V2.0 on Friday February 27 2015, @01:47AM
I did not realize the Telegraph ran NSFW ads. I mean, it is for an auction of something done by Helmut Newton, but I somehow doubt my employer will care if the nudity is artistic or not.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 27 2015, @02:08AM
Oh, you mean that same movie where they had that one awesome line, "*GARBLED BY BLARING SOUND EFFECTS*?" Classic.
Almost as "classic" as Nolan's excuse that the dialogue in Interstellar was only meant to serve as a "sound effect" in and of itself, making it perfectly reasonable to completely drown out the dialogue. You know, instead of fix it. Like they did with The Fellowship of the Ring. While it was still in theatres. Seriously, look it up. People had the same complaints about FotR that they did about Interstellar. Nolan's response was basically to jack himself off. Peter Jackson's response was to re-record all of the dialogue and re-release a "fixed" version to theatres where you could actually hear the actors speaking their lines. Imagine that, people actually like to hear what's being said by those high-paid actors when they're doing their high-paid acting. Nolan is an art-house wannabe whose had has swollen to such an extent that he can't even see his shoes, let alone his mistakes.
As for "peer-reviewed science..." Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. The whole time everyone was watching Guardians of the Galaxy in theatres I just couldn't get over the unrealistic depiction of physics and space travel. Totally ruined the moment.
Do you seriously say that kind of shit out loud? You must be real fun at the parties you never get invited to.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 27 2015, @04:06AM
Don't take my word for it. It already won the Oscar you little shit.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Appalbarry on Friday February 27 2015, @03:11AM
In almost every case, the more Oscars a film gets, the more likely we are to be bitterly disappointed if we watch it.
Year after year, if you attend any film festival, [viff.org] anywhere, you'll see film after film that just amazes [viff.org] and delights [afieldinengland.com] you, that actually makes you step back and consider the staggering wonder of life. Almost none of these films will ever be nominated for an Oscar. (OK, The Great Beauty [janusfilms.com] did win an Oscar, in the foreign film ghetto. It was massively better than whatever won best picture.)
(And yes, we saw a couple of the nominated films, and though they were OK, they didn't set our hearts and souls on fire.)
(Score: 1) by D2 on Friday February 27 2015, @04:37AM
Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
Let me guess: you didn't like The Big Lebowski, either...
(Score: 2) by Appalbarry on Friday February 27 2015, @06:01AM
As an Ordained Dudeist Preist, I can assure you that although The Dude Abides, [dudeism.com] there was no Oscar on his trophy shelf..
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Friday February 27 2015, @04:05PM
Keep in mind that this is just a informal survey of seven voters, but perhaps it indicates a larger problem?
The larger problem is that people keep paying attention to the Oscars for some reason. Why? The whole thing is a big sham, and it's been obvious for ages now. They always give awards to shitty movies, and overlook the best ones. It's like someone else said before: the whole thing is like mutual masturbation for a bunch of Hollywood insiders.
If you want to see some really good movies, go find movies (usually indie) which were given awards in various film festivals. Or just read IMDB reviews and ratings. There's plenty of great movies out there, both indie and mainstream, but they don't usually get any Oscars.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 27 2015, @05:17PM
"The movies I know are great didn't win, so clearly the voters are stupid." Maybe the movies they mention are fine movies, well that's great. First off, all awards ultimately come down at some level to who you know anyway, or whether the award committee is making some statement. But second of all, stop being such a whiny pretentious prick.
There is a certain set of people who pride themselves in grabbing onto obscure stuff, and because it is only appreciated by a few, this makes it refined and better than "mass market" or "industrial" or whatever. If it turns out to really get popular, they drop it like a hot rock (after first telling EVERYONE how they were so into it before it got popular) because now it is cheapened, or they "sold out." These people will go out of their way to find some god-awful movie, but they'll tell you how great and misunderstood it is because it was shot in black-and-white, is silent, has French subtitles, and ends with the word "Fin" (this last part seems to be most important). And if you tell them you didn't like it, well, it is because you simply are an unrefined element of "the sheeple" (that is one of their favorite slurs). The modern art movement in most of the last century involved this. Nevermind the fact that shit is shit, no matter what language you make the subtitles, and literally smearing shit on the Virgin Mary is great for generating publicity, but it is still just shit smeared on a statuette.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Daiv on Friday February 27 2015, @05:56PM
Judges don't need to watch ANY of the movies/films/joints. Therefore, everyone shouldn't really care. On top of that, this is for entertainment. And I'm posting this as someone who has written many film screenplays (under a pen name) and still doesn't care.
(Score: 1) by Rich on Friday February 27 2015, @10:20PM
For a moment, I was amazed that Isao Takahata was nominated. I thought, in the context of the other nominations, and the Lego snubbing, that he might score the win, even considering the usual bias. Kaguya is completely epic. The scenes where she breaks away from her naming party are probably the most expressive piece of film ever animated and worth an Oscar alone.
Now consider what an Oscar is worth to a film. I've read Kaguya hardly got half of its production costs at the box office. Re-screening and a home video launch with the Award might have been the difference between life and death for Ghibli. Now note that Ghibli "lost" its Disney distribution deal (which some say was only done to keep Ghibli small in the US). Kaguya and the upcoming "When Marnie was there" now being handled by GKids. And GKids also did the other nominee "Song of the Sea".
So would you expect Disney, reigning supreme in Hollywood, to help saving that annoying overseas studio that wipes the floor with them, storytelling-wise, while at the same time building up a new national competitor? On their home turf?
Of course the Disney entry had to win.
(One might want to take revenge with the classic Takahata prank for the unwashed masses, tell them they're in for 90 minutes of thigh-slapping, rolling-on-the-floor-laughing non-stop-fun action before handing them them "Grave of the Fireflies" *g*)