2013 Awards Season Thread — Page 7

Too bad so many of the voters don't see the films. I guess there's no way to force them.

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Cuarón's win is not a surprise, and I do think he'll get the Oscar (deservedly).

But I think it's a three-way race for Best Picture, between 12 Years a Slave, American Hustle, and third-place wild card Gravity. It will all depend on how the votes split.

But with this new, stupidly complex and unnecessary vote tallying, it's anybody's guess. And there's something seriously wrong with that bizarre system.

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I just can't see them giving it to 12YAS. Too dark, too brutal.

I think Cuaron is winning and I think American Hustle is going to win Picture.

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Yeah, I'm gonna say AMERICAN HUSTLE is out of the race (though, oh how happy would I be if it wins), and it's GRAVITY VS. 12 YEARS A SLAVE. I think as of now it's 12 YEARS for Picture and GRAVITY for Director but anything could happen in that Best Picture race, how awesome! Either they'll match Picture and Director, so that means GRAVITY would win; or it's a 12 YEARS/GRAVITY split; or 12 YEARS and GRAVITY split the vote and AMERICAN HUSTLE emerges as the winner. Who knows? I think we won't really know who the winner is until the name is read. Very different from previous years when things like ARGO, THE ARTIST, SLUMDOG, etc were big locks.

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The BAFTAs were given out today:

Best Film
12 Years a Slave

Best Animated Film
Frozen

Best Director
Alfonso Cuaron - Gravity

Best Actor
Chiwetel Ejiofor - 12 Years a Slave

Best Actress
Cate Blanchett - Blue Jasmine

Best Supporting Actor
Barkhad Abdi - Captain Phillips

Best Supporting Actress
Jennifer Lawrence - American Hustle

Best Original Screenplay
American Hustle

Best Adapted Screenplay
Philomena

Best Original Music
Gravity

Best Editing
Rush

Best Cinematography
Gravity

Best Production Design
The Great Gatsby

Best Costume Design
The Great Gatsby

Best Makeup & Hair
American Hustle

Best Sound
Gravity

Best Special Visual Effects
Gravity

Best Foreign Language Film
The Great Beauty

Best Documentary
The Act of Killing

Best Short Animation
Sleeping with the Fishes

Best Short Film
Room 8

Best British Film
Gravity

Best Rising Star
Will Poulter

Best Debut of a British Writer, Director or Producer
Kelly + Victor

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Of the categories applicable to the broad-category films, they distributed "best" awards to 8 different films. Is that typical of the BAFTAs, or a symptom of a field crowded with good films?

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Gravity's biggest producer is David Bowman, who is British and produced Harry Potter, that pretty mich employed all of BAFTA, which was noted in previous pages of the thread. C'mon people!

DBC getting shut out effected Actor and Supporting Actor. I also think the Philomena screenplay was an anomaly. British film and Coogan is a comedy institution there for Alan Partridge.

I do think though 12YAS loses its bite as a winner when it Gravity got the UK film and with exception to editing, won where it was supposed to. Meanwhile, 12YAS won in a category it has no shot in with McCaonughey's o issuing in actor but loses in winnable categories.

I think Gravity is very much helped by this.

The 12YAS score was not nominated. Gravity's to lose though I think Arcade Fire's Her score is its closest competition.

Despite the BAFTA win, one could take Lawrence's win as a make-up for losing to Riva last year. I think Nyong'o is still the favorite.

Not nominated but one wonders if there was a tide against Hans Zimmer. No nominations in any score he did, even Man of Steel or Rush would feel fresher than that score for The Book Thief. The score nods are such a poor reflection of this past year. I like to think Thomas Newman was nominated for Side Effects instead.

Here is Entertainment Weekly's analysis of what might happen on Oscar night after the results of the BAFTAs.


Prize Fighter Analysis: BAFTA wins for '12 Years a Slave' and 'Gravity' further muddle a tight Oscar race

Seen all the BP nominees except Nebraska and Philomena, which I'll be watching this week. So far, Gravity is still my personal pick. 12 Years a Slave is so brutal and unbalanced, I would be disappointed to see it win. I could understand if Nyong'o wins, but I'd give it to Lawrence, who stole American Hustle right out from under the rest of the cast.

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I was impressed with aspects of "Gravity," but even with the flaws I found in "12 Years a Slave," I don't think Gravity deserves to beat it for Best Picture.

And I completely, utterly, totally, and absolutely HATE the new, preferential ballot system. Politics disguised as mathematical odds should not ever pick a winner. The one with the most votes is the winner. Period.

All the Academy is doing is managing to lessen the impact of an award that has already lessened over the past two decades. It means less and less each year, and they are helping it to die out.

They should just throw a big PR party and televise where they praise each other for six hours and cry a lot. To hell with statues and voting. The votes mean nothing now.

Oh, wait. That's this year's Oscar ceremony.

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Okay, I just re-read the current rules on the Academy website (which anybody can do), because this preferential treatment on the final ballot didn't make any sense to me.

The final ballot has only the nominees listed with a box next to each one. As an active or lifetime member, you are allowed to vote for just one choice in each category. The one with the most votes wins, just as it has always been. "In the event of a tie for first place in the final balloting, awards shall be given for both achievements."

This final ballot system hasn't changed at all.

The preferential ballot system couldn't possibly work for the final ballots, because voters don't list and rank their choices the way they do for the nominations. One choice, one vote. Just like always.

The preferential nomination system is now in place for ALL categories, not just Best Picture. This is how they prevent more than five nominees from being in any category other than Best Picture. And the system for nominating Best Picture is the one that is so crazy and yields no less than five nominees, but no more than ten, and no film shall get a nomination with less than 5 percent of the votes.

So, to be clear again, the final ballots are the same as they have been since the 1930s (when they changed the rule about ties to be exact, instead of within three votes).

The preferential voting system is for the nominations only, not the final ballots, and it's now in place for ALL categories, not just Best Picture.

Official Academy Awards Rules

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Updated On: 2/17/14 at 06:46 PM