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Over-Hype: How We
[Buzzers] Kill the Awards Contender
By Johnny
Alba
The Argentine/Guerrilla have been
considered awards contenders since pre-production started in 2006
If there’s an Oscar
buzzer that truly deserves our community’s respect; it has to be Sasha
Stone (the pioneering editor of
Awards Daily). She really hit the nail
on the head with her website’s motto: “Nobody Knows Anything.”
As the former editor of The Oscar® Igloo, I was used to receive
continual feedback from our readers regarding our ever-changing
predictions. “You are absolutely wrong,” wrote some on a
frequent basis, “You are going to regret not including (insert name
here) in your top five,” claimed some others occasionally. Truth is, most of the
times we were all wrong.
A big part of our business is hype, whether it is genuine or fabricated.
Some films are blessed with early buzz that eventually pushes them to
the top (as we’d likely witness in a few more weeks when The Dark Knight
is released, right?) but some others have been destroyed by the same
hype that placed them at the top of our minds, or more appropriately, at
the top of our Oscar® predictions:
The list is already huge and it just keeps expanding: Memoirs of a
Geisha, The New World, The Phantom of the Opera, Marie-Antoinette
are
some of our most recent examples of death by over-hyping and let’s not
forget about the most notorious victims of all: Dreamgirls.
Some semi-successful awards contenders have survived the over-hype effect: 2003’s
Cold Mountain was snubbed for a Best Picture nomination
but it still scored seven nominations, including a win for Renée Zellweger
as the scene-stealing Ruby Thewes. Last year’s Atonement
charmed critics overseas but was seen as disappointment in the US when
it “only” received seven nominations, including one for Best Picture.
How many predicted Juno would emerge as a viable Best Picture contender
back in February 2007? How many did not predict There Will Be Blood or
No Country for Old Men?
I declare myself guilty
of over-hyping; I was one of the many buzzers who contributed to
the Dreamgirls fiasco among others but I don’t want to go there
anymore, I don’t want to be see a film I want to be good never matching
expectations (which will eventually happen to most of the films we are
all over-hyping this year). Still, I can’t help but feel curious about
why others haven’t realized that a film with a great cast and crew is
probably gold on paper but potentially **** on reality.
It’s all a matter of patience before the real contenders start to
appear in everyone’s predictions. Cannes and all the upcoming festivals
will likely give us a hint about the films we should take
seriously but still; nobody can tell what will the unpredictable Academy
embrace this year. Will the voters go for the political stories like
Frost/Nixon? Will they go for the ones that invite the viewer to escape
reality and have a good time like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button? Or will they
go controversial and give their support to real-life stories like Milk or
Guerilla?
In my experience, we won’t know for sure until either the National Board
of Review or, more efficiently, the BFCA announce their yearly awards
and begin the usual purge that ends up separating the real contenders
from the ordinary hopefuls.
So far this year, heavy-buzzed films like Doubt, Australia,
Revolutionary Road, Body of Lies, The Changeling,
The Soloist, Wall-E,
Blindness, the films mentioned on the above paragraphs and even the
Coens’ Burn After Reading are already in danger of over-hyping and I
fear at least half of them will end up perishing to this cruel but
increasingly common disease in the awards buzzing world.
Until then,
what films do you think are the most likely to be ‘killed’
by over-hype this year?
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