Monday, January 20, 2014

What Happened With Oscar?

I'm aware that it's been, what, five days, and suddenly the entire world has moved beyond the surprises and the snubs and everyone suddenly predicted The Grandmaster for Best Costume Design and Christian Bale for Best Actor.  However, I thought it would be worth looking a little bit more into five of the biggest snubs of this year's Oscars and trying to figure out, mathematically, which was the biggest head-scratcher.  Here's my homework:

What Happened with...Tom Hanks?
Precursors: BFCA Awards, SAG Awards, Golden Globes, BAFTA
Oscar History: During the 1990's, he could do no wrong at the Oscars.  Hanks won back-to-back trophies in 1993 and 1994, and was nominated for Big (1988), Saving Private Ryan (1998), and Cast Away (2000).  He's also on the AMPAS Board of Governors.
Why This Makes No Sense: Well it's certainly not the precursors-Hanks is the first person EVER to miss at the Oscars in Best Actor after getting nominated for all four of the previous televised awards shows.  It's also not due to Hanks over-performing historically with these awards bodies: he has always turned a BAFTA citation into an Oscar nod (ditto the SAG Award) and while he's made it with HFPA without making it with Oscar, it's never been for a drama.
Why This Makes Sense: Hanks has a history of watching his films get Best Picture nominations while he misses for acting.  Apollo 13, The Green Mile, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close all three landed Best Picture nominations without Hanks scoring for acting, and Catch Me If You Can and Road to Perdition both scored multiple Oscar nominations without Hanks making it.  Perhaps the clincher here is that all five of these films, plus Captain Phillips have something else in common: a Best Supporting Actor nomination.  It's not a perfect theory (damn you Gary Sinise!), but the odds seem to oddly be against Hanks if one of his costars is getting nominated.  Perhaps he's too generous on the campaign trail?

What Happened with...Emma Thompson?
Precursors: BFCA, SAG, Golden Globes and BAFTA
Oscar History: Over the course of four years, Thompson managed to win two Oscars and gain five nominations, one of the most impressive counts during the 1990's.
Why This Makes No Sense: Unlike Best Actor, it's not unprecedented (Marion Cotillard, Tilda Swinton, and if we discount BFCA since it wasn't doing nominations, Jane Horrocks all have had a miss after hitting every major precursor), but it's still extremely rare-only the fourth time it's happened in twenty years.  Thompson oddly doesn't over-perform at the BAFTA Awards relative to the Oscars (only one other film prior to Saving Mr. Banks didn't get her to Oscar), so it's not that.
Why This Makes Sense: This makes sense when you view it through the lens of Amy Adams and Meryl Streep and two odd facts about them.

First Adams-it is extremely rare for Oscar to nominate a film with a female star for Best Picture and not nominate the film for Best Actress.  While there have been a few films with multiple female leads and only one got in (The Kids Are All Right, The Help, The Hours), there are only four films that I can find in the past twenty years that scored with Best Picture but not Best Actress (Cate Blanchett and Benjamin Button, Keira Knightley and Atonement, Toni Collette and Little Miss Sunshine, and Andie MacDowell and Four Weddings).  Conversely, there were thirty films that pulled off both.  Adams was going with 88% odds, not a bad place to be for someone the Academy has already nominated as many times for acting as Thompson.

Secondly, we have Meryl.  Everyone knows that Meryl has seventeen Oscar nominations (...now 18), but one of the more underreported aspects of Meryl's career is that it has very few coattails that don't benefit her first.  Looking just at films where Meryl was the lead actor (like August Osage County), only one film she's ever made has received an acting nomination without her being nominated: The Hours.  And Meryl received an Oscar nomination that year for Adaptation, which everyone knew she would be scoring, putting less pressure on the Academy to cast off Salma Hayek.  That wasn't the case this year with Meryl only having one film to carry her, and with Julia Roberts looking strong in the supporting category.  A near perfect track record for Streep wasn't something Thompson was going to be able to top.

Add onto this that Dench and Bullock were also in Best Picture nominees, and no one would quibble that Thompson was more likely than Blanchett, and you have your explanation.

What Happened with...Oprah Winfrey?
Precursors: BAFTA, BFCA, and SAG Awards
Oscar History: Winfrey received an Oscar nomination for her first film role in The Color Purple, and is a recent recipient of the Jean Hersholt Award.
Why This Makes No Sense: Multiple reasons-this one for some reason seems the oddest to me.  Winfrey is a huge celebrity, scoring a major comeback in a critical (and perhaps more crucial) commercial hit, and had Harvey Weinstein plugging her.  It'd be one thing if she wasn't any good in the film, but she's even that-she acts circles around June Squibb and I'd put her above Julia or Sally.  So why, Academy, why?

It isn't the lack of the Globe nomination, oddly enough.  In fact, in the past ten years, the actress who missed at the Globes but made it with the SAG Awards got Oscar-nominated 60% of the time (the reverse is only 40%, and that's including Hawkins).

Why This Makes Sense: About the only explanation I can think of is The Butler missing in all other fields, while Blue Jasmine, August Osage County, Nebraska, American Hustle, and 12 Years a Slave all came with not only more nominations, but also acting nominations.  In the past twenty years, 70% of the nominees for Best Supporting Actress also came with another nominated actor.  I think that's probably the best explanation here-Cate Blanchett's coattails carried Sally Hawkins across the finish line.  If Forest Whitaker had only been stronger, Oprah would have made it.

What Happened with...Paul Greengrass?
Precursors: DGA, BAFTA, BFCA, and HFPA, plus a Best Picture nomination
Oscar History: Greengrass was the odd-man-in, the role now taken by, let's say Marty Scorsese, for United 93.
Why This Makes No Sense: That's a LOAD of precursors to miss on.  Plus, people who traditionally miss with AMPAS and score with the DGA Awards do it multiple times (Christopher Nolan, Cameron Crowe, Rob Reiner) and never score in this category, which Greengrass already has done.
Why This Makes Sense: This is the first one that I have to become objective on-there's no mathematical evidence for Greengrass missing with this many precursors without going to subject matter analysis.  It's not to say this doesn't happen (Ben Affleck and Kathryn Bigelow both did it last year), but quite frequently, the more standardized films frequently get ousted for edgier fare: Haneke over Affleck in 2012, Greengrass over Bill Condon in 2006, Mike Leigh over Marc Forster in 2004, and Fernando Meirelles over Gary Ross in 2003.  While few would argue that Scorsese isn't establishment, his film is far edgier and more catered to this branch than Captain Phillips.

What Happened with...Hans Zimmer?
Precursors: HFPA, BFCA, and BAFTA nominations
Oscar History: Zimmer won an Oscar for The Lion King and has ten nominations for scoring.
Why This Makes No Sense: Zimmer is one of the biggest names in music in one of the most clique-oriented branches of the Academy (witness Alexandre Desplat making it when few thought he would).  And he got snubbed for Arcade Fire-first time nominees in a rock band...that may fly with the Globes, but the Oscars?  Doubtful.
Why This Makes Sense: Unlike, say, John Williams, Zimmer goes in spurts with the Academy.  Zimmer has missed on two Best Picture nominees (Driving Miss Daisy and Frost/Nixon), something unfathomable for several composers.  Sometimes the Academy runs cold with him-considering he also had a shot with Rush, his prolific nature may have cost him as well.

Anyway, those are some of my theories-what are yours?  How do you think these five missed with Oscar?  And which is the biggest surprise?

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