Nominations for best director are often the same as those for best film, for obvious reasons. The same is not necessarily true for the winner though, as the last ten years can confirm...
2005 - Ang Lee, Brokeback Mountain ($14M)
2004 - Clint Eastwood, Million Dollar Baby ($30M)
2003 - Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King ($94M)
2002 - Roman Polanski, The Pianist ($35M)
2001 - Ron Howard, A Beautiful Mind ($60M)
2000 - Steven Soderbergh, Traffic ($48M)
1999 - Sam Mendes, American Beauty ($15M)
1998 - Steven Spielberg, Saving Private Ryan ($70M)
1997 - James Cameron, Titanic ($200M)
1996 - Anthony Minghella, The English Patient ($27M)
Four out of the ten winners here did not also win for best picture, so obviously even though the director 'makes' the movie, the criteria used to decide the two categories differ. How about the budgets involved? Best pictures cost on average $65M, while best directors costs... $59M. It's a little less, but hardly, and a lot more than the average for best actor/actress. As I have repeated ad nauseum, this is basically the average for a studio film (NB: The Pianist and Traffic were 'independently' produced). None of these movies, however, cost less than the magic $10M, and there must be a reason, because coincidences, freak chances and short-term blips on long-term trends never occur, and Ang Lee would not have won if Brokeback Mountain had only cost $9M, do you here!
Maybe good/experienced/popular/whatever directors don't work on cheap movies. Or maybe it actually costs quite a lot of money for the acting, art and production design, lighting, cinematography and editing it takes to make a movie look well directed.
This is not to say that movies made for less than $10M cannot be brilliantly directed (I saw Peter Jackson's Braindead - $3M - on the weekend and it has fantastic direction, but I'm pretty sure he didn't crack an Oscar for it back in 1992) it is simply that what the weirdos in the academy look for in best director nominated films, whatever that might be, is not found in cheap movies.
So how do the 2006 nominees stack up...
Alejandro González Iñárritu, Babel ($25M)
Martin Scorsese, The Departed ($90M)
Clint Eastwood, Letters from Iwo Jima ($15M)
Steven Frears, The Queen ($15M)
Paul Greengrass, United 93 ($15M)
Well for one, it seems that for this category, 15 is the magic number. To back up my thoroughly research argument (no best directors for less than $10M), poor Little Miss Sunshine ($8M and nominated for best picture) gets bumped by the $15M United 93. Closest to the average is The Departed, so maybe it's finally Marty's year. Or maybe I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. Something to consider until next time.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Saturday, February 03, 2007
How much for your consideration? Best Actress
The best actress in a leading role requiring prosthetics, weight gain, playing a real person, ugliness or pretending to be a man goes to...
I suspect that the best actress award generally goes to movies that have below average budgets. Why? Women simply do not get good roles in big budget movies. Fact. Or is it? As I've done for the last few posts, let's have a look at the last ten years of Oscars and see what budgetary trends we can tease out.
2005 - Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line ($28M)
2004 - Hilary Swank, Million Dollar Baby ($30M)
2003 - Charlize Theron, Monster ($8M)
2002 - Nicole Kidman, The Hours ($25M)
2001 - Halle Berry, Monster's Ball ($4M)
2000 - Julia Roberts, Erin Brockovich ($51M)
1999 - Hilary Swank, Boys don't Cry ($2M)
1998 - Gwyneth Paltrow, Shakespeare in Love ($25M)
1997 - Helen Hunt, As Good as it Gets ($50M)
1996 - Frances McDormand, Fargo ($7M)
First of all, four of these movies were made for under the magic $10M mark, and exactly zero were made for more than $100M. Not only that, but exactly zero were made for more than the average cost of a studio movie (about $65M). The average budget was a measly $23M, which Julia Roberts can make herself for a single film. The reason (not why Julia Roberts can make $23M for a single movie, that defies explanation, but why best actress movies are generally so cheap)? Well, for one, four of the movies (Monster, Monster's Ball, Boys don't Cry and Erin Brockovich) had no production input by one of the major studios, and films made by non-major studios by default have lower budgets. For two, see the first paragraph of this post: take this year for example; are they really going to give Audrey Tatou (The Da Vinci Code) an Oscar for being stupid, or Keira Knightly (Pirates of the Caribbean) one for being annoying, or Kate Bosworth (Superman Returns) one for not being as good as Margo Kidder.
And the nominees for 2006 are...
Penélope Cruz, Volver (unknown, say $5M)
Judie Dench, Notes on a Scandal (unknown, say $10M)
Helen Mirren, The Queen ($15M)
Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada ($35M)
Kate Winslet, Little Children ($14M)
Fits the trend nicely, maybe even a little cheaper this year - which makes sense, considering there are no movies with Julia Roberts or Jack Nicholson in to bump up the average. Based on budgetary considerations alone, anyone could win. The first three weren't produced by one of the big six, but that is no help, as explained above, so I'm going to have to throw in the towel. Having said that, surely Judie Dench and Meryl Streep were only nominated because the nominating committee (or however the hell they go about nominations) are just plain lazy, Helen Mirren because she is going to win, Kate Winslet so they can shaft her again and Penélope Cruz as the token 'foreigner', or to piss off Tom Cruise (see also, the first line of this post, i.e. Helen Mirren plays a real person).
I suspect that the best actress award generally goes to movies that have below average budgets. Why? Women simply do not get good roles in big budget movies. Fact. Or is it? As I've done for the last few posts, let's have a look at the last ten years of Oscars and see what budgetary trends we can tease out.
2005 - Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line ($28M)
2004 - Hilary Swank, Million Dollar Baby ($30M)
2003 - Charlize Theron, Monster ($8M)
2002 - Nicole Kidman, The Hours ($25M)
2001 - Halle Berry, Monster's Ball ($4M)
2000 - Julia Roberts, Erin Brockovich ($51M)
1999 - Hilary Swank, Boys don't Cry ($2M)
1998 - Gwyneth Paltrow, Shakespeare in Love ($25M)
1997 - Helen Hunt, As Good as it Gets ($50M)
1996 - Frances McDormand, Fargo ($7M)
First of all, four of these movies were made for under the magic $10M mark, and exactly zero were made for more than $100M. Not only that, but exactly zero were made for more than the average cost of a studio movie (about $65M). The average budget was a measly $23M, which Julia Roberts can make herself for a single film. The reason (not why Julia Roberts can make $23M for a single movie, that defies explanation, but why best actress movies are generally so cheap)? Well, for one, four of the movies (Monster, Monster's Ball, Boys don't Cry and Erin Brockovich) had no production input by one of the major studios, and films made by non-major studios by default have lower budgets. For two, see the first paragraph of this post: take this year for example; are they really going to give Audrey Tatou (The Da Vinci Code) an Oscar for being stupid, or Keira Knightly (Pirates of the Caribbean) one for being annoying, or Kate Bosworth (Superman Returns) one for not being as good as Margo Kidder.
And the nominees for 2006 are...
Penélope Cruz, Volver (unknown, say $5M)
Judie Dench, Notes on a Scandal (unknown, say $10M)
Helen Mirren, The Queen ($15M)
Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada ($35M)
Kate Winslet, Little Children ($14M)
Fits the trend nicely, maybe even a little cheaper this year - which makes sense, considering there are no movies with Julia Roberts or Jack Nicholson in to bump up the average. Based on budgetary considerations alone, anyone could win. The first three weren't produced by one of the big six, but that is no help, as explained above, so I'm going to have to throw in the towel. Having said that, surely Judie Dench and Meryl Streep were only nominated because the nominating committee (or however the hell they go about nominations) are just plain lazy, Helen Mirren because she is going to win, Kate Winslet so they can shaft her again and Penélope Cruz as the token 'foreigner', or to piss off Tom Cruise (see also, the first line of this post, i.e. Helen Mirren plays a real person).
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