It’s A Little, Golden Man

Every year millions of people watch an industry award show. Known as the Academy Awards, it has honored the best* in the movie business with small statues known as Oscars since 1929. On February 26th the 89th Academy Awards will be held and movies released in 2016 will be up for winning in the categories they were nominated for back in January.

Can any movie win an Oscar?

No. The first rule is that it has to be released in theaters for at least seven days in the proper year. And for a feature film, the run time has to be at least 40 minutes, so your 5th grade video book report is not eligible to win best picture because of its age and time (unless it was a very thorough report).

In addition it has to get nominated by members of the Academy, it is the Academy Awards after all. Membership is invite-only and the full list of members is not open to the public. The number of votes needed is a bit complex and varies from category to category. After the nomination process, there is another round of voting to determine who wins. But just making a good movie is not usually enough. When shooting for Best Picture, it can cost between $3 and $10 million. This is made up of advertisements, promotional events, and sending a copy to every of the 6000+ members of the Academy (they get free movies basically all year on the studio’s tab). There is frequent campaigning that tries to convince the members that a certain movie is the best, and it can appear similar to a political campaign in some regards.

Assuming that you have released a movie over 40 minutes, last year, for over 7 days in theaters, convinced enough Academy members to nominate your movie and later vote for it, and actually won the Oscar, then your movie must be hands-down the best in that category right? Right?

*-Every year there are Oscar snubs and people question the decision of whether a movie is really the “best”. Until winning Best Actor with The Revenant last year, Leonardo DiCaprio had yet to win an Oscar, much to the disdain of his many fans.

DiCaprio Winning with his first Oscar – http://oscar-prod-images.bls

I myself have a bit of an issue with the “Oscar-bait” movies that are questionable in terms of plot and actually being enjoyable to watch.

 

But some movies are pretty much unquestionably the best that year, the most-winning films of all time are Ben-Hur, Titanic, and The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, which all received 11 Oscars, the Lord of the Rings was notable for winning every category it was nominated for (and getting almost twice as many as the preceding two movies). But even these impressive films pale in comparison to Walt Disney, who has 22 Oscars to his name.

 

And finally, as with all Oscar blogs, I will end with my prediction for the winners (in the categories of my choosing), here are the nominees to make your own list.

A disclaimer: I have seen a grand total of 5 (and read one of the books) of all of the movies that have a nomination associated with them (definitely wanted to see more, probably will pick some up on DVD) so if I ace this list then I am playing the lottery.

Best Picture: Fences

Best Actor: Casey Affleck

Best Actress: Natalie Portman

Best Original Screenplay: Hell or High Water

Best Adapted Screenplay: Arrival

Best Visual Effects: Kubo and the Two Strings

Best Cinematography: Arrival

Best Directing: La La Land

Best Animated Feature Film: Kubo and the Two Strings

 

 

 

Bonus prize to whoever can guess the movie that the title is from (did not win an Oscar).

6 thoughts on “It’s A Little, Golden Man

  1. This post was very informative, as I did not know about the eligibility requirements for the Academy Awards. I also agree that the winners of certain Oscars have not always been the best in their respective categories. Much like you, I have not seen most of the films nominated for awards, so I cannot really provide predictions for the winners. My only hope is that Zootopia wins the Oscar for animated feature films.

  2. Oscar season is upon us. Like you, I did not get the chance to see as many of the nominated films as I would have liked to. From what I did see, I definitely would second your pick of Natalie Portman for Best Actress in a leading role. She is one of the best actresses in the business right now and her performance as Jackie Kennedy in Jackie proved that. Arrival was probably my favorite of the best picture nominees, although I would be surprised if it were to beat out Manchester by the Sea, Moonlight, or La La Land.

  3. Well for all my avid readers out there, the title comes from National Treasure, (a true national treasure I may add). The line is spoken by Riley Poole (played by Justin Bartha).
    And for those of you keeping score at home, I got a total of 2 guesses correct out of 9.

  4. I’m a mega fan of watching the Oscar awards! I remember very well that I was seeing something to eat at Mcdonald’s Menu Pricing and at the same time seeing the wonderful Leonardo DiCaprio being awarded!! I miss those good times…

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