Is The Academy Out of Touch? Movie Grosses for 4 Prominent Oscar Categories.

So, I hypothesized that oscar nominees' domestic grosses have been declining in recent years. Last year for example, the highest grossing movie was Brokeback Mountain, and second was Crash, hardly commercially dominant movies. So, from BoxOfficeMojo.com I gathered the average gross for the five movies in the four highest categories: best picture, best director, best actor, best actress and plotted those changing grosses over the last ten years. You can click the images to get a larger scale.



As can be seen by this first graph, my guess was seems correct for Best Picture and Best Director, but not for Best Actor and Actress. It appears, looking back through nominees, that best acting categories tended to look through lesser known, even more foreign movies for acting performances. Picture and Director however, used to have many more higher grossing movies. Some years are obviously skewed, such as 1997 with Titanic's $600mm but in general, the number of $100mm movies nominated have declined and the average gross has declined.



For best picture, the average over the last ten years is about $113mm per movie nominated. However, in the last 3 years, no movie has even crossed the $90mm mark. Even removing the Titanic year, the average falls to about $103mm, which still shows how low the last three years have been.



Best Director shows a similar story. Although slightly lower, the average of just above $99mm is between $30mm and $50mm higher than the average gross for the categories in any of the last three years.

So the implication could be 2 things. One, the Academy is actively seeking out less commercially successful movies and trying to dig for the limited release, artsy movies for best picture. Two, and I think much more likely is that the breed of Oscar movie is pushing people to make Oscar movies that they know won't be that profitable. The average is pulled down by many more $50mm movies rather than a few really low movies. In recent years, Iwo Jima, Babel, The Queen, Crash, Capote, etc... were all designed to be Oscar movies. Producers, directors and studios seem to be going more out of their way to make winners, when they used to just overlap with otherwise popular movies.

Oscar Review

I just haven't been seeing movies enough to keep this updated but hopefully an oscar review will get me back on track. Before I get to the actual movies, I did some interesting "research" last night on the best picture category and box office grosses. The results of which will come in the next post probably tomorrow with what I think the implications are from the Oscars. But first, a review of the categories. I was going to do all but then decided against some categories.

Best Picture: Winner/My Pick - The Departed
Thank you academy for not picking Babel. Although Little Miss Sunshine was ranked ahead of Departed in my earlier rankings, I think I really thought this was a BETTER film. I would have loved to see LMS win as well, but its hard not to think the Departed deserved it. Ultimately, I would have most liked to see a split award for Departed and Little Miss Sunshine but wasn't going to be disappointed if either one won.

Director: Winner/My Pick - Scorsese
Yep, not really anyone all that contentious here to give him a run for this money. Eastwood did a very good job in Iwo Jima and I heard that United 93 was excellent, but Scorsese was absolutely fantastic. I saw Departed for the 3rd time last week and you can't stop appreciating how well done it is. The cuts, the angles, everything. Well deserved for Scorsese.

Best Actor: Winner/My Choice - Forest Whitaker.
Although I agree with this selection ultimately, the category was flawed without the inclusion of Leonardo DiCaprio's Departed performance, and arguably Jack Nicholson from Departed as well. In addition, other potentially snubbed nominees include Aaron Eckhart from Thank You For Smoking. Out of all actors, my pick would be Forest Whitaker JUST ahead of DiCaprio for the Departed.

Best Supporting Actor: Winner/My Choice - Alan Arkin
Way to go Academy. Not picking Eddie Murphy should give us all faith again in the Academy's abilities. Look, Eddie Murphy was very very good and probably the best person in Dreamgirls but just wasn't that great. Alan Arkin was really fantastic and deserves this. Although correct in its ultimate decision, the nominees were WAY off here. Probably every male actor in both Little Miss Sunshine and The Departed had a reasonable claim to be nominated here. Most absurd were Jack Nicholson (if not best actor), Alec Baldwin, Steve Carrell, and Greg Kinear.

Best Actress: Winner- Helen Mirren; My Pick - Meryl Streep
So, I don't have a real strong opinion about Meryl Streep winning, although I did think she was excellent. I would also admit that I haven't seen Volver, Notes on a Scandal or Little Children so can't really fairly gauge them. What I do know was that Helen Mirren just wasn't that great. I don't think her character was one that really warranted such recognition given how wooden the role was. Just as Matt Damon was very good in Departed, his character was kind of wooden, so was hard to be that good. I really don't think Mirren deserved this.

Best Supporting Actress: Winner - Jennifer Hudson; My Pick - Abigail Breslen
Kinda similar to previous category, where I mostly take issue with the winner, not who didn't win. Look, Jennifer Hudson sang amazingly well in Dreamgirls, really, truly, amazingly well. But that is not acting. Give her an Oscar for best song or a Grammy, but she did not deserve this for acting. Some times in musicals, people do both (Richard Gere in Chicago and Eddie Murphy in Dreamgirls) but Jennifer Hudson did not.

Adapted Screenplay: Winner/My Pick - Departed
Fantastically written movie. It picks up all the cop/Irish/criminal dialogs really well. But in addition, there's lots of really memorable, funny, meaningful lines. I'd now see any movie written by Monahan. This category screwed up in 2 big ways. First, Borat: not a screenplay, not really adapted. It's mostly people responding to him, not written lines. I think this was really just the Academy trying to fit Borat somewhere into the show. Second, THANK YOU FOR SMOKING WASN'T NOMINATED. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Probably the third best written movie of the year and some of the best dialog of any movie ever.

Original Screenplay: Winner/My Pick - Little Miss Sunshine
I was glad Michael Arndt got credit for this. Think about writing this story and coming up with all the lines, all the plot twists. Would love to see the next movie this guy does.

Art Direction: Winner/My Pick - Pan's Labyrinth
Kind of an easy choice here.

Cinematography: Winner - Pan's Labyrinth; My Pick - Children of Men
As much as I really liked Pan's Labyrinth, what was most impressive about Children of Men was its cinematography. The movie overall wasn't that amazing, but two scenes double-handedly make it an easy pick for the winner. The chase scene pulled off some amazing shots from inside and outside the car and from numerous angles all in one take. Moreover, one of the final sequences of entering and then escaping the building (also one take) was maybe the best technically filmed scene in recent memory.

Documentary: Winner/My Pick - An Inconvenient Truth
Not a lot to say about the movie itself. It was a very well done movie and its commercial success is probably most impressive. (45mm worldwide gross) What was most disappointing about this category was that Wordplay wasn't nominated. This was a really interesting, really entertaining and really well done movie about the NYTimes Crosswords and their annual tournament. Go rent it if you haven't seen it.

Editing: Winner/My Pick - The Departed
Sorry, not much to say here. If you thought something else should have won, you're wrong.

Foreign Language Film: Winner - The Lives of Others; My Pick-Pan's Labyrinth/Iwo Jima
So first off, what bothers me about the Oscars is that Iwo Jima wasn't in this category. It represents a larger picture of people needing to game out where their picture or actors, etc... has the best chance and can't really get into other categories. Iwo Jima is probably easily the best foreign language film of the year, but Eastwood didn't want it to be in the category b/c he probably thought it would hurt his chances of Best Picture. Anyway, Pan's Labyrinth most definitely deserved this.

Makeup: Winner/My Pick - Pan's Labyrinth
I was shocked to see that the faun was makeup and not CGI. Even more impressive makeup than I thought.

Original Score: Winner - Babel; My Pick - Pan's Labyrinth
Babel had no memorable music. I can't remember when watching the movie thinking that the music was good. Pan's Labyrinth, exactly the opposite. It's hard to resist humming the song just sitting here thinking about it.

Original Song: Winner - I Need To Wake Up; My Pick - some Dreamgirls song
Same deal as score really. I don't remember Inconvenient Truth even using any songs. As much as I didn't like Dreamgirls, the music was fantastic, and definitely deserved a win here.

Overall, the Academy surprised me on the upside. I thought they'd go more artsy but they made generally the right decisions. The biggest mistakes were in the nominations, not giving any to Thank You For Smoking, and more to The Prestige.

2007 Projections for Blockbuster Movies - the Year of the Sequel

Here's some thoughts on some categories for movies moving forward in 2007. This isn't including any smaller budget/limited release movies that are too hard to track a year in advance.

Highest Grossing:

• Easy answer is Pirates of the Caribbean. I can't separate my own total dislike for this movie franchise from any other opinions, so I'm gonna say that this movie underperforms its very high expectations. Seemed like even those who somehow liked the first one, didn't really like the second one, so gross will probably be a bit less.
• My pick for highest grossing film of 2007 is Shrek: The Third. The first shrek made 267mm domestically and 484mm worldwide. The jump to the second was massive with 441mm domestic and 920mm worldwide. Obviously it wouldn't double again, but I think it may be as popular, which will probably be enough.
  
• Probably the biggest thing going against both of these movies is that they come out so close together and so close to Spiderman 3 (2 and 3 weeks after). These movies will almost definitely compete so they're gonna need massive weekends each to rack up big totals.

Personally Most Anticipated

• Ocean's Thirteen: yes, I'm a sucker for these movies. It could suck, but I'd probably still love it. Giving Andy Garcia a bigger role should be excellent.
• National Treasure 2: also a sucker genre for me. Nothing better than mixing American history with random puzzle solving. I think the first one best captured the Indiana Jones spirit since Last Crusade.
• The Host: highest grossing movie in South Korean history, and won many awards in international film festivals.....and its basically a godzilla rip off. Comes out in March and should be quite interesting.

Likely to be Most Disappointing/Just Bad:

• Rush Hour 3: first one wasn't funny, second one wasn't funny....can only assume.
• The Simpsons: just don't think you can drag it out into a movie.
• Fantastic Four 2: yea, exactly.

Overall, 2007 looks to be the year for huge blockbuster sequels. All of the following are sequeles coming out this year: Bourne Ultimatum, Evan Almighty, Fantastic Four 2, Harry Potter 4, Die Hard 4, National Treasure 2, Ocean's Thirteen, POTC 3, Rush Hour 3, Transformers, Shrek 3, Spider Man 3, The Brazilian Job, Daredevil 2, AVP 2, Austin Powers 4, Butterfly Effect 2, Bringing Down the House 2, The Goonies 2, Harold and Kumar Go to Amsterdam, The Hills Have Eyes 2, Hostel: 2, Jeepers Creepers 3, Mr. Bean 2, The Punisher 2, Resident Evil 4, Saw 4, Sin City 2, True Lies 2, Under Siege 3, Wolverine, X-Files 2, and some more. Not all are confirmed for 2007, but most are.

The only conclusion is that we've completely run of out ideas for movies, and are desperate for anything (see Mr. Bean 2, Jeepers Creepers 3, etc...). Once you get into the movie season part of the year in the spring, will be hard not to have a given weekend without 1 (or maybe even 2) sequels being released.

The Last King of Scotland: Comments

I definitely went into this movie expecting that Forest Whittaker would be pretty good but the rest of the movie would be overly dramatic and less than great. Whittaker's performance ended up really deserving most of the credit that he is receiving. I can't really compare him to the somewhat random other best actor nominees, but it was quite a good performance. He pulls off a slightly crazy guy really well.

On a side note, I'm really glad there's becoming more and more roles like this one for otherwise not widely known actors who are generally pretty good. Phillip Seymour Hoffman had always been really good, Capote gave him recognition. Forest Whittaker was excellent in Good Morning Vietnam and some other things, and how he has received notice. Next up in my mind is Jack Black, who's fully capable and just awaiting the correct role.

What most surprised me about the movie was that the rest of it was quite good. The primary non-Whittaker character I thought did a really good job. The story was also just really interesting. I don't know to what aspect it's fully accurate but it was pretty informative but also character driven enough to keep you motivated. Through the first half of the movie, you're kind of rooting for Amin, and then you go through the transformation along with the primary character.

Given the quality of the movie and that its really an Academy-type movie (ie: drama, political, etc...) I'm really surprised this didn't get more nominees. One side note is that there are legitimately moments in the movie that I turned away from the screen from the gruesome stuff happening. It's pretty rare for that to happen to me, but it happened twice. Overall, really good acting and really good movie.

Epic Movie: Comments

So I hate to admit that I saw Epic Movie. It was largely due to the fact that I was home and didn't want to work on my thesis and was intrigued by it being the #1 movie in American on its opening weekend. The other reason I wanted to see it is that I believed that there had been way too many epic-type movies made recently. Basically, any fantasy novel, any story with an epic battle or any story with some guy addressing a large crowd from atop a mountain/stone structure are made. Although many of these movies are good, I felt a spoof was more than called for. Neither my intrigue, desire to see a spoor nor desperation for entertainment were satisfied by this "movie".

I'd classify the problems with this movie as universal. For a spoof, you're supposed to do similar things but over the top. However, this movie was basically just a worse version of Chronicles of Narnia (which is tough to begin with) that added very little of its own. When I think about a successful spoof I think of Last Action Hero which was just a ridiculous action movie with some specific allusions to other films. Epic Movie was just a bunch of non-sequitor breaks from Willy Wonka (almost as scary as Johny Depp was) randomly to Narnia, and then just as randomly to the show Cribs.

The other little thing was that it was probably the worst acting I'd ever seen. I realize its a dumb teen movie so its not gonna have anything great, but it was shockingly bad. It was like they signed up the replacement crew for Harold and Kumar or Date Movie but then they all fell ill so their back up crew ended up acting in this movie. Finally, it just wasn't funny. I was in a granted pretty empty theater of like 10 people, but none of us laughed once through the movie. The writing was also just annoying. Probably about 80% of one character's lines was just repeating another person's lines. This continued for the whole damn movie to the point where it was just shockingly annoying.

You will get dumber watching this movie. You will want your 8 dollars and 85 minutes back. You will want to walk out almost as much as during Windtalkers.

Academy Awards: Best Picture Thoughts (3)

3. Letters from Iwo Jima: so although I think its a close call with The Departed, Iwo Jima has to get the number three spot. Probably the strongest part of this film was the story itself. Although we've all seen lots of war movies it was certainly unique to see a film from an "enemy" perspective. Many of the similarities in what soldiers were feeling and thinking for the Japanese makes for an interesting perspective with American soldiers' feelings as portrayed elsewhere.

Moreover, Clint Eastwood definitely deserves acclaim for his directing in this picture. Many individual scenes were really excellently done, most notably the arrival of American forces, the flashback scenes and reading the POW's letter from his mother. Finally, the acting was really excellent. Watanabe was probably the best I have seen him (and he was pretty excellent in Last Samurai) and deserves all the acclaim he is receiving. Some of the other not really well known actors playing regular soldiers were quite excellent as well. Finally, something true of all of the top 3 was that the soundtracks were absolutely fantastic and really enhanced the movie.

Holding this movie back from the one or two spot in my mind was the pace, and what sometimes wasn't shown. The movie dragged a bit in the middle. In addition, Eastwood's choices for what didn't appear on screen were strange. We never really saw a/the battle in any scale even though we were told tens of thousands of soldiers were involved over several days. The movie made it seem like it was 10-20 Japanese soldiers defending the island and the lack of scale and dramatic battle scenes (every movie could use some Saving Private Ryan thrown in) held the film back.

2. The Departed: a really really really excellent movie. It will be a real shame if Scorsese doesn't earn his first Oscar for this film. So, to mix it up, first the weakness: the end. I haven't seen the original Infernal Affairs so I can't speak comparatively of the ending, but this one certainly seemed over the top. Even though much of the movie was shooting and killing, there was just a bit too much in the last 5 minutes. The only other weakness of the movie is: it just wasn't as good as Little Miss Sunshine.

So the strengths of this movie are pretty much everything. Again, the soundtrack was really good. The directing was close to perfect. Transitions from the childhood scenes of Matt Damon to the present day were pretty flawless and drew you in right away. The screenplay was excellent. Some movies overdue the crime dialog but Departed does just enough of it that its interesting and catchy but not too much that it gets annoying. Next, the ridiculously superb acting. There were probably the best performances I've ever seen from DiCaprio, Wahlberg and Baldwin and more than above average from Damon and especially Nicholson. Wahlberg and Baldwin's smaller side characters did wonders to keep the movie going and draw us into additional characters. Finally, the story was really edgy and kept everyone interested for 2+ hours.

1. Little Miss Sunshine: the best picture of the year 2006. I've seen this movie three times now and its gotten arguably better each time (although it was pretty damn good the first time). So I'm going to skip over the weaknesses as I don't really know any. Again to quickly point out, the soundtrack was fantastic and makes you want to start a road trip of your own. The screenplay was maybe one of the best I've seen. The dialog never disappointed in wittiness, humor, and ingenuity. Coupled with what I'd say might be the best ensemble performance of a cast I've ever seen made the entire movie hilarious, clever, tragic (at times) and generally fantastic.

I wouldn't have thought it unreasonable for Kinnear, Breslin, Arkin, Carrell, Collette, and even Dano to receive nominations. I do think that not giving ones to Kinnear and Carrell is really ridiculous. Overall, this movie grabs all emotional appeals. The dysfunctionalness of the family is believable enough to be kinda tragic to watch but ridiculous enough to be hilarious. It's hard not to watch the whole movie without laughing hysterically or at minimum smiling throughout. Its pretty rare to find a movie that is both so well done and also so fun to watch.

That being said for all the movies, I'd be shocked if my #1 wins. Comedies have always been snubbed by the Academy (and arguably LMS is as well in terms of acting), and there's little reason to believe this year will be different. Assuming that the Departed wins instead, it won't be too ridiculous but if its the 3rd through 5th choices of mine, I'd really feel that the Academy has lost all credibility...again.