The fact is today that even when it comes to the most popular movies, most people don’t see most movies until those movies land on DVD… if they see those movies at all. And in a cluttered field of films available to watch at home, major awards wins can make some films stand out. We see that hope represented in DVD release dates. Skyfall, which just won Best British Film at last night’s BAFTAs, is out on DVD in the U.S. [Amazon U.S.] and Canada [Amazon Canada] tomorrow, and in the U.K. [Amazon U.K.] next week. Argo — which won the BAFTAs for Best Film and Best Director for Ben Affleck and is positioned to do well at the Oscars in two weeks — is out on DVD in the U.S. [Amazon U.S.] and Canada [Amazon Canada] next week, and early March in the U.K. [Amazon U.K.], just after the Oscars ceremony.
The studios clearly hope that awards nominations and wins give films an extra lift when it comes to moving DVDs (and, we can presumed, getting folks to stream films at a price). Does that work on you?
Does a film winning awards make you more (or less) likely to want to see it? Does an award win make a film jump to the top of your want-to-watch list?
(If you have a suggestion for a QOTD, feel free to email me. Responses to this QOTD sent by email will be ignored; please post your responses here.)
I pretty much ignore awards; I find them more interesting for what they reveal about the people awarding them. The Oscars are usually for films that try to be Important with the occasional grudging nod to something the mass audience actually liked, the Golden Globes are more of a popularity thing, the MTV awards go to whichever teen franchise has released something most recently.
But when I’m choosing what film to pay for? Nope.
But, this year, both Argo (180M worldwide) and Lincoln (221M worldwide), the two main Oscar contenders, have done very well at the box office.
Indeed. And glancing at a list of Best Picture winners over the past couple of decades, several — Dances with Wolves, Silence of the Lambs, Forrest Gump, Braveheart, Titanic, Shakespeare in Love, Gladiator, Return of the King, Slumdog Millionaire — weren’t exactly unloved by the masses, as I recall.
Awards generate publicity for the nominees and winners. Insofar as an award might call my attention to a film (or album or book) that I had previously been unaware of, and that seems intriguing to me, then sure, I’d be more likely to check it out (if not necessarily agree on its award-worthiness).
I think it’s conflicting, honestly. I saw Argo before it won all of the awards, but I was intrigued from when I saw the trailer, so it was just a plus that it got good reviews as well that it has won many awards in the past few months.
But in regards to films winning awards, in the past many films have enticed me to see them because of that notice. If it wasn’t for nominations, I would not have seen Black Swan, Slumdog Millionaire, and various others.
Yet, those award recognized films also make me worrisome a little bit, just in the sense of it will be any good or at least enjoyable. I know the terms “enjoyable” and “fun”, don’t always have much in common in regards to Academy Award winning films, but it sometimes turn me away. Like in regards to a current film, such as Zero Dark Thirty, I haven’t seen it because it has recived a lot of publicity (not always good publicity) and postive reviews raving about how good it is. Yet, I feel obligated to see it, but at the same time I know it will be a three hour movie about the manhunt for Bin Laden. We all know how it ends, so my question is what is there to really entice me to see it? If it’s the sort of picture that doesn’t appeal to me, but yet there is still this chronic reminder of the critics saying that it is very good and that its nominated for awards like hotcakes.
Its challenging because you feel obligated to see it because of it’s consensus among the media and audience members, but yet it is also difficult, especially if the story or the trailer doesn’t intrigue you to see it. That’s my two cents… I could be wrong.
I’m more or less with Bluejay on this one. I usually feel like I have sufficient information on most feature films to decide whether or not I want to see them before awards consideration comes into play, and the awards don’t usually make much difference in that evaluation. With shorts both animated and live-action, foreign films, and documentaries, the awards often point me in the direction of something I wasn’t aware of before. Beyond that, I’ve seen too many mediocre films and performances rewarded to believe that the fact of an award nomination (or win) necessarily means a film is worth seeing.
Awards, not necessarily. Reviews, definitely. Like Argo, for instance. I didn’t even know what it was about or anything until the good reviews started showing up. Then my interest was piqued. The awards it’s getting are just the cherry on the top of the sundae I was already eating.
I have to say the awards thing DOES work for less well known or foreign movies. I look at the list of nominees and add them to my movie queue, regardless of genre.
Since I really don’t try to keep up with new releases, I rely a lot on word of mouth and reviews here to decide which movies to see, so in that sense, awards don’t really matter to me but whenever a movie wins an award it does receive a lot of press and I at least notice that it exists. So awards are good for publicity I guess.
For me anyway.
I have several contradictory answers to this question:
(1.) The more Oscar nominations a movie gets, the less likely I am to enjoy it.
(2.) There are so many bad movies out there that an Oscar nomination indicates at least a minimum standard of quality.
(3.) I try to watch all the Best Picture nominees. I’m terrible at picking the winners, and I need all the help I can get on Oscar night.
This year, I’ve seen all the nominees except for Amour. I hear it’s very moving, but every time I see a Michael Haneke film, I hate it with a deep and fiery passion.
My “New York cousin,” who is a member of SAG, saw this, loved the old woman’s performance, and couldn’t stand the movie itself. At one point, the husband brings home a bunch of flowers and the camera patiently watches as he cuts off the stem of each one…very, very deliberately.
At one time it did, but nowadays I can honestly say that whether a film being nominated or wining an award has little to no effect on my desire to see it. The only thing that might entice me, as Bluejay pointed out, is if it’s a film that had up until then flown under my radar gets nominated and learning about the film’s existence and what the film is about piques my interest. To a certain extent, I must confess that winning an Oscar for best picture is a strike against a film because they tend to go to middle-brow films that have gravitas without the intellectual heft to carry the self-importance.
I’m more likely to see it if MJ likes it, actually. But that would seem a little sychophantic if I said it! But, yes, nominations do garner my attention merely because they increase visibility.
I’d like to say yes, but the truth is no, not really. I’ve seen only 18 of the Best Picture winners produced in my lifetime, less than half. The last best picture I saw was Return of the King, 9 years ago. In three of the last 6 years, I didn’t see any of the nominees. This year, I did see 4 of the nominees, but that’s the equivalent of 2 in years prior to the expanded lists. (I have managed 4 out of 5 three other years, but never all 5 nominees.) And I say this as someone who sees between 20 and 40 movies in theaters, plus another dozen or two at home, every year
Yes and no. I look at both the award nominations and the reviews. If a film is poorly received at the box-office, that is not a negative to me–unless the film is gushed over by certain critics. Then I know that it is likely a bore-fest that stands out to said critics because they usually see so many “audience friendly” (read: Hollywood Standard) films that they go overboard for films that are “significant.”