Award Show Info

Ok, so one of the things I wanted to do with this blog was share my never ending supply of previously known and recently learned Hollywood info.  Today I bring you some information on the difference in award shows.

There are two types of award shows - those put on by critics or reporters and those put on by the film industry members themselves.  (Top film festival honors are a different area.)

- The Critics' Choice and Golden Globes (the GG winners are determined by the Hollywood Foreign Press) are examples of the first type.

- The Screen Actor's Guild (SAG), The Director's Guild (DGA), The Eddie Awards (film editing), etc. are industry types of awards.  Actors vote for actors, director's for the "best" director, editor's for the "best" editing job on a film, etc.

At the end of "awards season" the industry members come together, all the individuals and guilds represented at once, for the Academy Awards* - also known as the Oscars.  The BAFTAs, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, held before the Academy Awards, are the British equivalent of the Oscars.

*Note: Voters must be members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.  Initial voting is restricted to members of the Academy branch concerned.  For instance, when the first wave of ballots is mailed to all members of the Academy (there are around 6,000) only directors may nominate other directors.  Once the first round of voting is done and the field has been narrowed to no more than five nominees in each category, except the Best Picture category, then all members of the Academy are allowed to vote for a winner in most categories, including Best Picture.

Unless a critic or reporter is an actor/producer/director, etc. or vice versa and in the voting academy, they don't vote in the other's ceremonies.

I'm explaining all of this for a reason.

This year there are two films that have been widely acclaimed and yet are very different.  They have each won in distinct areas and are the leading films for winning the Best Picture award on Sunday night.  "The Social Network" has won almost every critic award this year and "The King's Speech" has won most all of the industry awards.

I believe there is a reason for this.

Both are critically acclaimed films.  But I feel that The King's Speech doesn't hold the same "clout" as The Social Network does with critics.  Most critics and reporters see The Social Network as a leading edge movie, right at the forefront of modern film making with an edgy cast, brilliant script and fabulous director.  The King's Speech is more of your "typical" film.  A period piece if you will, with the costumes and accents and witty banter that you find in a British piece.  This is not to say it's not fabulous, it's just different.

The King's Speech however has won quite a few of the top guild awards, such as the DGA, SAG award for best ensemble cast and other various awards.  Though The Social Network has won some of the numerous industry awards out there as well.

Now, these differences by themselves don't really matter, BUT when you are trying to determine who will win the various academy awards - it makes all the difference in the world.

Since the academy voters are made up of the different areas of the film industry, they are the ones who will be voting come Oscar night.  The critics might give all the top awards to one film, while industry members vote for a completely different one.  You don't usually see that, most of the time everyone seems to agree and you get one film that takes the top honors almost all season.

Roger Ebert has another way of looking at how votes are being tabulated this year that I find interesting and that also applies to my thoughts on the differences in voting between the critics and industry members.

"If I were still doing “If We Picked the Winners” with Gene Siskel, my preference for best film would be “The Social Network.” It was not only the best film of 2010, but also one of those films that helps define a year. It became the presumed front-runner on the day it opened, but then it seemed to fade. Oscars often go to movies that open after Thanksgiving. It's called the Persistence of Memory Effect.

There's another factor. A lot of academy voters don't choose the “best” in some categories, but “the most advantageous for the movie industry.” Hollywood churns out violent crap every weekend and then puts on a nice face by supporting a respectable picture at Oscar time. I mean that not as a criticism of “The King's Speech,” which is a terrific film, but as an observation. A British historical drama about a brave man struggling to overcome a disability and then leading his people into World War II looks better to the academy than a cutting-edge portrait of hyperactive nerds."

So if you're betting at work, or at home, to see who-gets-what on Oscar night, you might want to take into consideration that The King's Speech has been winning lately where it apparently counts.  Amongst it's peers, it appears that The King's Speech is deserving of the top honors Sunday night.  Feel free to choose The Social Network as best picture, but make sure you keep it in the back of your mind that The King's Speech could come away with the win.