2015 poll: SCFZ does the Oscars

[flip]

This is a trial balloon - if it seems SCFZ is interested in this kind of poll, I'll continue with them, in parallel with the year polls (I chose 2015 so people watching films for that poll are watching for this and vice versa). We often deride the Oscars for many reasons, and the question I thought a poll could answer is: how often do they get it right? Do they pick the right winner (by SCFZ opinion) from the choices? Do they pick the right choices to begin with?

So the poll is in two parts:

• poll #1: from their nominees, we'll pick a Best Picture.
--> to vote in this poll, award to every nominee you've seen a rating from 1 to 5 stars
--> you should assign ratings as follows (do not use your ordinary ratings scale) :
5 stars: in the top 10% of best picture nominees from this decade
4 stars: in the top 30%
3 stars: in the middle
2 stars: in the bottom 30%
1 star: in the bottom 10%

So if you generally dislike Best Picture nominees (as I do!), you should still be giving roughly one film per year (when they nominate 8-10) a 5-star rating, and only one or two a 1-star rating. I'm encouraging ratings like this so we're not measuring whether generous voters have seen a film, but how a film, in SCFZ's view, ranks against its competition. The film with the highest average rating will win our parallel Best Picture (from the nominees). The nominees are (copy/pasting from this list is preferable to me than typing things up from scratch) :

Spotlight (Tom McCarthy)
Bridge of Spies (Steven Spielberg)
Brooklyn (John Crowley)
Max Max: Fury Road (George Miller)
The Martian (Ridley Scott)
The Revenant (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)
Room (Lenny Abrahamson)
The Big Short (Adam McKay)

• poll #2: what should the Academy have nominated? for this poll, you can list up to 5 films that should have received a Best Picture nomination but did not. From these nominations, I'll count up the film with the most mentions, and it will win our alternative Best Picture, and I'll also compile a slate of alternative nominees. The point is not to pick our favourite films of the year (that's what the year poll is for). The point is to pick only films that you might reasonably expect could have been nominated in real life. So bear in mind that foreign films are nominated on average about once every seven years, and those that are have a particular character. Most nominations should be English-language productions, and probably none should be all that experimental.

In the end, I might have a runoff vote to decide whether we prefer our Best Picture (from the nominees), or our alternative Best Picture, but I haven't thought that far ahead.

I'll also start a Cannes 2015 poll, in the same vein, soon.

[flip]

poll #1

5 stars
Bridge of Spies (Steven Spielberg)

4 stars
Brooklyn (John Crowley)
The Revenant (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)

3 stars
The Martian (Ridley Scott)
Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller)

2 stars
Spotlight (Tom McCarthy)
Room (Lenny Abrahamson)

1 star
The Big Short (Adam McKay)


poll #2

Carol (Todd Haynes)
Blackhat (Michael Mann)
Ex Machina (Alex Garland)
Tangerine (Sean Baker)

[Monsieur Arkadin]

5 Stars
Max Max: Fury Road (George Miller)

4 Stars
The Revenant (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)

2 Stars
The Big Short (Adam McKay)

1 Star
Spotlight (Tom McCarthy)

Not seen the others.

Poll #2
Carol (Todd Haynes)
45 Years (Andrew Haigh)
The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos)


Does that work? Or does not seeing all the films mess up the idea of bottom 10% of the decade, etc? Though, I might put spotlight at the absolute bottom anyway, so I doubt that will ever shift.

[flip]

Does that work? Or does not seeing all the films mess up the idea of bottom 10% of the decade, etc? Though, I might put spotlight at the absolute bottom anyway, so I doubt that will ever shift.

part of the reason for the rating system is so anyone can vote, even without seeing all the films, so yes, that works perfectly. really you should just imagine how you'd rank spotlight or mad max against any 2010s best picture nominee, and if you think spotlight is one of the worst (i am close to agreeing with you!) it should go in the 1-star bin, but if it's merely bad for a best pic nominee, it's probably a 2-star film.

but i don't think your poll #2 choices are really films anyone might have expected could get a best picture nomination, so they don't feel in the spirit of the exercise. i haven't seen them though, so i can't be sure of that.

[MrCarmady]

hmm

5 stars
Brooklyn (John Crowley)

4 stars
Room (Lenny Abrahamson)
Spotlight (Tom McCarthy)

3 stars
Bridge of Spies (Steven Spielberg)
Max Max: Fury Road (George Miller)
The Big Short (Adam McKay)

2 stars
The Revenant (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)

I don't hate any of these the way I hated Darkest Hour or whatever, plus I tend to avoid the ones that look truly awful (Bohemian Rhapsody comes to mind). Brooklyn is gonna make my actual 2015 list for sure, lovely film. The 4 star ones as well, probably - they're both Oscar bait but get the balance right and are understated at the right moments with great casts pulling their weight. Bridge of Spies has its moments (I randomly think of 'would it help?' often when I'm stressed) but is a bit cheesy and plodding for my liking. Mad Max seemed like a one trick pony, not helped by my enormous expectations. The Revenant is beautifully shot but the content amounts to a boring episode of Survivor. The Big Short is a fun, digestible look at a complex topic, though I can't imagine ever re-watching it.

Alternative list:
Inside Out
The Lobster
Carol
Ex Machina (not eligible for our 2015 poll but certainly eligible for the Oscars)
Sicario

All of these were nominated for other categories which is a good indication some of them could've been close to the final eight, I guess.

[Silga]

poll #1

5 stars
Bridge of Spies (Steven Spielberg)

4 stars
The Big Short (Adam McKay)
Brooklyn (John Crowley)
The Martian (Ridley Scott)

3 stars
Max Max: Fury Road (George Miller)
Spotlight (Tom McCarthy)

2 stars
Room (Lenny Abrahamson)


poll #2

Carol (Todd Haynes)
Sicario (Denis Villeneuve)
Trumbo (Jay Roach)
Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (J.J. Abrams)

[Monsieur Arkadin]

but i don't think your poll #2 choices are really films anyone might have expected could get a best picture nomination, so they don't feel in the spirit of the exercise. i haven't seen them though, so i can't be sure of that.

I don’t know how I screwed that up. It’s been edited.

[---]

5 stars
Brooklyn (John Crowley)

3 stars
Room (Lenny Abrahamson)
The Big Short (Adam McKay)

2 stars
Spotlight (Tom McCarthy)

=====================

Victoria (Sebastian Schipper)
Carol (Todd Haynes)
Anomolisa (Charlie Kaufman)
The Diary of a Teenage Girl (Marriane Heller)
The End of the Tour (James Ponsoldt)

[Umbugbene]

5 stars
The Martian (Ridley Scott)

4 stars
The Big Short (Adam McKay)
Spotlight (Tom McCarthy)

3 stars
Max Max: Fury Road (George Miller)
Bridge of Spies (Steven Spielberg)
The Revenant (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)

2 stars
Room (Lenny Abrahamson)

==========================
Alternates:

Sicario
Cool Apocalypse

[john ryan]

poll 1

5 Stars
Max Max: Fury Road (George Miller)

4 Stars
Brooklyn (John Crowley)
Spotlight (Tom McCarthy)

3 Stars
Bridge of Spies (Steven Spielberg)
The Martian (Ridley Scott)

2 Stars
The Revenant (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)
Room (Lenny Abrahamson)

1 Star
The Big Short (Adam McKay)


poll 2

Carol (Todd Haynes)
Sicario (Denis Villeneuve)
Anomalisa (Charlie Kaufman)
Chi-Raq (Spike Lee)
A Most Wanted Man (Anton Corbijn)

[cinesmith]

poll #1
4 stars
The Revenant (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)
Room (Lenny Abrahamson)

3 stars
Spotlight (Tom McCarthy)
Bridge of Spies (Steven Spielberg)
Brooklyn (John Crowley)
Max Max: Fury Road (George Miller)

2 stars
The Big Short (Adam McKay)
The Martian (Ridley Scott)

poll #2

A Perfect Day (Arama)
Remember (Egoyan)
A Bigger Splash (Guadagnino)
Child 44 (Espinosa)
Witches (Eggers)

[grabmymask]

Poll 1

5 stars:
Max Max: Fury Road (George Miller)

4 stars:
The Revenant (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)

3 stars:
Bridge of Spies (Steven Spielberg)
The Big Short (Adam McKay)

2 stars:
Spotlight (Tom McCarthy)
Room (Lenny Abrahamson)

1 star:
The Martian (Ridley Scott)

———

Poll 2

The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino)
Blackhat (Michael Mann)
Crimson Peak (Guillermo del Toro)
Bone Tomahawk (S. Craig Zahler)

My picks for poll 2 might be a little too genre heavy for the academy, but hey they nominated Fury Road this year so why not

[ofrene]

poll #1

5 stars
Max Max: Fury Road (George Miller)

4 stars
Bridge of Spies (Steven Spielberg)

3 stars
Brooklyn (John Crowley)
Spotlight (Tom McCarthy)
The Martian (Ridley Scott)

2 stars
The Revenant (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)
Room (Lenny Abrahamson)
The Big Short (Adam McKay)

poll #2

45 Years (Andrew Haigh)
Carol (Todd Haynes)
Creed (Ryan Coogler)
Tangerine (Sean Baker)

[Roscoe]

Poll #1

Three Stars
BROOKLYN

Poll #2
45 YEARS (Haigh)

[flip]

i honestly forgot all about this poll - since i forgot to revive it nearer to the end of the 2015 voting, i'll do that now, in case either people watched more 2015 films and want to update ballots, or people didn't see this and want to vote in it. i'll post the results on thursday!

if you want to edit a ballot already-posted, please quote it in a new post, along with your new ballot, so i can see what has changed. thanks!

[wba]

poll #1


2 stars
Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller)


1 star
Spotlight (Tom McCarthy)
Bridge of Spies (Steven Spielberg)



poll #2

Aloha (Cameron Crowe)
Spectre (Sam Mendes)
Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (Christopher McQuarrie)
Blackhat (Michael Mann)

[flip]

Results

SCFZ awards the 2015 Best Picture to...

Brooklyn (John Crowley) - 3.87

the rest of the nominees, in order of finish:

Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller) - 3.70
Bridge of Spies (Steven Spielberg) - 3.33
The Revenant (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu) - 3.12
The Martian (Ridley Scott) - 3.00
Spotlight (Tom McCarthy) - 2.64
Room (Lenny Abrahamson) - 2.56
The Big Short (Adam McKay) - 2.50

The actual winner, Spotlight, finished 6th in our poll out of the 8 contenders

Serendipitously, eight films received two or more mentions in our alternative nominations poll, so we have an alternate slate just as long as the official one:

45 Years (Andrew Haigh)
Anomalisa (Charlie Kaufman/Duke Johnson)
Blackhat (Michael Mann)
Carol (Todd Haynes)
Ex Machina (Alex Garland)
The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos)
Sicario (Denis Villeneuve)
Tangerine (Sean Baker)

And from the alternate slate, the runaway winner for SCFZ's Alternate Best Picture is... (unsurprisingly)...

Carol (Todd Haynes)