Some Thoughts on 20 Seasons of Oscar Viewing Project

As you might've seen, this past week I hit a big milestone on the blog, completing my 20th Oscar Viewing Project.  For the uninitiated, when I started writing this blog daily in 2012, one of the primary reasons that I did that was because I wanted to keep track of a lifelong bucket list item I have which I called "the Oscar Viewing Project."  Essentially this is a project where I see every narrative, feature-length category for the Oscars (read: no documentaries or short films unless they're cited in other categories, because judging those are too hard & honestly I don't want to do that...to make up for it I also am seeing all of the Palme d'Or winners in the same project).  This is a huge undertaking of a project, one that involves seeing at least 3500+ films (I don't know the exact number and I don't know if I'll ever do the groundwork to know it), and one that I have (as of this morning) 1702 films to go.  It's a project doomed to failure (there are several films like The Patriot in 1928 that are totally lost), but it's one that I think is a fascinating thought experiment, not only to climb the Mt. Everest of Oscar-watching, but also to better understand the Oscars, and many of the criticisms that are levied at them.

One of the things that I wanted to learn from this project was whether some of the criticisms that are bandoed against the Academy are, well, too lazy.  The Oscars are a finite situation.  Most categories only have 5 nominees and one winner in a given year, and the reality is that most years have more than five good films/performances, and certainly more than one worthy winner.  The Oscars just celebrated their 95th ceremony, and while that's a lot, there are more than 95 great actors & actresses...my theory is that people are too cruel when it comes to discussing the Oscars, and I wanted to understand if this was right.

So far, I'm finding that it is.  How I pick the winners is based solely in a vacuum.  Most of the criticisms against the Academy are that they favor "old age" awards or giving awards to someone that is "overdue" (conversely, that they also say AMPAS ignores overdue performers...people like to complain), and so the only way to fix this was to pretend that each ceremony is its own unique snowflake, and for me to simply pick the nominee I like the most.  If I know, for example, that a better score from John Williams is coming, if he's the best of the five that Oscar assembled, I still need to give it to him both times to be fair.

This means that some of the biggest criticisms that have come to Oscar in the past twenty years aren't necessarily fixed.  I don't, for example, have a statue for Amy Adams, either in my OVP Ballots (where I only pick the best of the five nominees from AMPAS) or from the My Ballot epilogue articles (where pick all of the nominees and winners myself).  She gets close twice (two silver medals for The Master and Arrival), and she gets four nominations from me (including for Arrival and Enchanted, which were both noted "snubs" for Oscar), but no wins.  In fact, while I correct a few issues that Oscar has (Michael Fassbender, Jake Gyllenhaal, Andrew Garfield, & Emily Blunt all win gold medals/statues in my world, Viola Davis has two), I cause madness as well (Jessica Chastain, Emma Stone, & Jennifer Lawrence do not have a statue/gold medal in my world despite Oscar having given them one).

Honestly, what I'm learning most from this project is that "the nomination is the prize" cliche is really, really true.  Especially as I assemble the "My Ballots," there are legendary actors who are looking at maybe one nomination in their careers, if that.  Certain years are harder than others, and limiting to only five makes it hard...which is what is supposed to happen.  This is supposed to be the best-of-the-best...it's not supposed to be easy.  I'm confident there are going to be great actors in this project that don't win, including some legends, and some terrific performers that never even get cited.  Critics seem to demand that a specific person hasn't been "rewarded" until they get a statue, and while I get that, the further along I go, the more I realize that the nomination has to be the prize-there's not enough statues to go around based on the rules of the game.

Which brings me to one last point, and a totally fair criticism of Oscar-they waste way too many nominations.  This is true in all fields, but especially in the tech categories.  Composer Thomas Newman, for example, gets five nominations from me for Best Score so far (2002-21)-a very respectable number, and unlike Oscar, I gave him a statue (for Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events).  But in the time I've covered, Oscar gave him ten nominations, many for mediocre work where he got in based on a Best Picture nod or just his name alone.  The reality is very, very few people deserve more than ten nominations in their career (there will be exceptions, but even film luminaries like John Williams & Meryl Streep it's become plain-to-me are over-nominated, if not necessarily over-statued), and the looseness with which Oscar over-rewards certain names & films makes it harder to live by the adage "the nomination is the prize" when for too many people...it's basically just a checkmark in their career mythology.

Those are my thoughts for now...we'll kick off Season 21 tomorrow!