2015 Golden Globes

[Jpcase]

With regards to Original Screenplay, not very good. The last time the winner for the National Board of Review award was even nominated for the Oscar for Original Screenplay was five years ago with The Coen Brothers' A Serious Man. And only once did the winner of the NBR award also win the Oscar, Diablo Cody's Juno, which actually tied for the NBR award.

While it would be awesome if The Lego Movie somehow pulls off an upset and gets nominated for Original Screenplay at the Oscars (and I very much believe that the film is worthy of a nomination in that category, though probably not a win), I was thinking more along the lines of, "How likely is it that Academy voters will take note and pay more attention to the film in regards to the Animation category"?

They really don't have to bother, the Oscars have been cribbing the NBOR for half their nominations ever since they changed the rules in '03 and now don't have any time to think of their own.

What was the rule change that happened in '03?

[Dan]

If he's talking about the expansion of the Best Picture nominees from five to up to ten, than it's actually beginning in the 2010 awards. It was the 2009 awards where everyone caused a big stink over the Academy snubbing WALL-E and Dark Knight for Best Picture when both were widely considered.

In fact, to answer your question proper, it was because of the WALL-E snub in particular, despite having tied Beauty and the Beast record for most nominations for an animated film at six, that really directed a great deal of criticism at the Academy for not regarding animation any more highly. While we have seen a few more nominations for animated features in other categories, the criticism still remains and it's starting to include the handicapping of visual effects (check out the story that was posted in the front page's news section).

[Jpcase]

Yeah, I remember the Dark Knight/WALL-E controversy. Thanks for pointing me to the visual effects article - that was really interesting!

I wonder how that will play out.

[Dan]

Just to further illustrate just how political the Academy is, here's a series of Siskel & Ebert clips that commentate on the controversy with the Best Documentary award when Hoop Dreams got snubbed (the clips were put together as a featurette by the Criterion Collection for their release of the film).

[EricJ]

What was the rule change that happened in '03?

The Weinsteins were determined to get a repeat of that 1997 year when they had four of the five Picture nominees--and believed the Oscar was "theirs" with Shakespeare in Love and Life is Beautiful the next two years--and their annual blitzes to shove a groomed Oscar-bait title down voters' throats with FYC campaigns after was becoming synonymous with their name.
(Even after Weinstein Co. and Miramax both went under, we still get the annual, quote, "Miramax bribe" nominee, as parodied when Hugh Jackman sang "I haven't seen The Reader...")

To try and cut back, the Academy shortened the voting period, and moved the ceremony up a month, to give studios less time to nag them with mail/promotional campaigns.
Unfortunately, that also gave overworked Academy members less time to think of their own nominees, and, just like the fans, we started getting desperate last-minute guesses cribbed from buzz rumors, the Golden Globes and the NBOR Critics' awards:
"Yeah, I heard District 9 and the Tarantino one were supposed to be pretty good, that Coen Bros. one has been getting a lot of Screenplay awards, and Les Miserables is probably going to sweep it when it opens..."

[Dan]

Weinstein Co. hasn't gone under, as much as we like to think they have, they just haven't been Oscar fanatic as in the past (although King's Speech winning Best Picture in 2011 was a slight exception).

[LotsoA113]

The Weinstein Company have actually had a pretty big Oscar presence; The Reader got a Best Picture nomination in 2008, and their features won that particular award in 2010 and 2011 (the aformentioned King's Speech and The Artist respectively were the winners). They've had Silver Linings Playbook, Django Unchained, Silver Linings Playbook and Philomena nominated for Best Picture since then and The Imitation Game (which I haven't seen yet) is considered a shoo-in to win.

I'm thinking LEGO wins BAF at the Golden Globes as well as the Oscars. It's got some of the best reviews of the years, it's one of my personal favorite movies this year and it's recent awards attention like winning Best Screenplay from the National Board of Review bode well for it. If I were to guess the nominees come Oscar time, I'd say they'll be:

* Big Hero 6
* How To Train Your Dragon 2
* The LEGO Movie
* The Tale Of The Princess Kaguya
* The Book Of Life

I will say, by the by, the best piece of Golden Globes news for me was seeing Jake Gyllenhaal get into Best Actor for Nightcrawler. Incredible movie, incredible performance, so glad it's getting much deserved attention.

[EricJ]

and The Imitation Game (which I haven't seen yet) is considered a shoo-in to win.

(Eh, the Brit and/or Canadian gay drama never wins Picture. Supporting Actor, nearly always, but never Picture.
You never go the full Gay-In-Hiding if you want the Oscar...Not that the Crying Game ever had a chance against Unforgiven to begin with.)

I'd say they'll be:
* Big Hero 6
* How To Train Your Dragon 2
* The LEGO Movie
* The Tale Of The Princess Kaguya
* The Book Of Life

That's a fair assessment: With no Pixar, that still has the Disney and the DWA, the "art" movie, the "neat visual" one, and the sentimental voter booster-favorite title that's just there for show.
(Although Lego and BOL could pretty well interchange the last two categories, something tells me that we'll not only get Lego in the Animated category, but we're in danger of another cutesy fanboy put-up job for Best Song like we had for The Muppets.)

[Jpcase]

Just to further illustrate just how political the Academy is, here's a series of Siskel & Ebert clips that commentate on the controversy with the Best Documentary award when Hoop Dreams got snubbed (the clips were put together as a featurette by the Criterion Collection for their release of the film).

Wow. I'll definitely have to check this film out. I remember hearing something about it before, but never got the whole story. Sad that it works that way. Have the rule changes that they mentioned in the clip had much effect?

I feel like upsets of that magnitude are rare with the Academy though (or then, maybe I'm just ignorant of my Oscar history). For the most part, they seem to do a good job of honoring worthy films. Whether the most worthy films win or not is open to opinion, but with very rare exception, all of the nominees in any given category tend to be (I think) fairly close in quality to each other.

Having said that, I feel like the animation category is often more lopsided than the others. I definitely want to see voters take animation more seriously, but in some ways, I can't blame them. When films like The Croods and Despicable Me 2 are deemed to be among the best animated films of the year, then it does feel like that category is just the kiddie table of the Oscars. So if The Lego Movie (the first animated film in several years that I feel could be worthy of a Best Picture nomination) loses to Big Hero 6 or Dragon 2 (both of which are plenty fun, but fall somewhere below the realm of "award-worthy" in my mind), then I have to say, I'll be pretty frustrated.

If I were to guess the nominees come Oscar time, I'd say they'll be:

* Big Hero 6
* How To Train Your Dragon 2
* The LEGO Movie
* The Tale Of The Princess Kaguya
* The Book Of Life

Are you counting Song of the Sea out entirely? I mean, Secret of Kells didn't have a lot of buzz beforehand, did it? 2011 and 2013 each had two art films nominated, so somebody must be taking the time to actually watch these.

[Dan]

Nice to see J.K. Simmons (voice of Tenzin in Legend of Korra and doing J. Jonah Jameson in just about everything these days) winning a Golden Globe.

[Dan]

When Selma Hayek presented the Best Animated Feature award with Kevin Hart, the announcer noted her upcoming animated film she's producing The Prophet. Looking it up, it is based on the highly-regarded Kahlil Gibran book of the same name that is a collection of 26 prose poetry essays. Roger Allers is the main director of the film, but there are segments that are directed by others including Bill Plympton (Your Face) and the Brizzi Brothers (The Firebird Suite from Fantasia 2000).

Winning the award looks to put Dragon as the front-runner going into the Oscars. Since the category was introduced in the Golden Globes in 2006, only once did the winner of the Golden Globe not win the Oscar (2011, The Adventures of TinTin wasn't nominated for the Oscar, which went to Rango).

[Jpcase]

When you say since 2006, do you mean "not counting 2006"? Because the Globes gave the award to Cars that year.

[Dan]

When I mean since 2006, I mean that's the start point, which does include Cars having won that year. But I will say I'm actually glad this was noted because Happy Feet won the Oscar that year over Cars, so it's actually twice the Globes and the Oscars didn't match.

[Jpcase]

Well, I've certainly got my fingers crossed that this year will make three. A win for Big Hero 6 would have at least made sense to me, since it's the most recent, and since Disney is in the middle of a pretty big comeback. But I'm struggling to see how the "politics" wound up favoring Dragon. Do you think that voters just wanted to throw a bone to DreamWorks in the midst of their recent struggles?

[Dacey]

How to Train Your Dragon 2 was superb , so I'm very happy that it won. I still think it might be one of the greatest animated movies I've seen...ever. Just a terrific, terrific sequel.