Wow, up until yesterday, I had almost completely forgotten that Comic Con is happening this weekend. I guess it doesn't speak well for the Con that my interest in it has decreased to the point that I don't even really care to pay attention to the scheduling this year, let alone pay for registration. (Granted, I'm going to a wedding on Saturday, so I'm physically unable to make it to Comic Con this year anyway. But even if I was free, I'm not sure I'd make the effort to go this year.)
In a way, it's a relief. The feeling of not going to Comic Con reminds me of how I felt last year when I decided to not sign up for my work's fantasy football league. Gone is the burden of having to rack my brain, picking and choosing and plotting my every move over the course of two 16-18 hour days. No running, no crowds, no drain on my wallet. Every so often, life requires you to stop and take a break, right?
Of course, I'll still miss being there this year, since I've had plenty of good times in the past. Who could forget Spike & Mike's Gauntlet of Sick and Twisted Animation? Or Jerry Beck's Worst Cartoons Ever showcase? Or the Brisco County Jr. panel with Bruce Campbell? Or getting into an epic gunfight with the cast of Spaced? Or meeting Troma head honcho Lloyd Kaufman? Or meeting Ren & Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi and getting a free personalized drawing from him? Man, I'm getting all nostalgic now. Makes me really wish I could go this year.
But for all the awesome panels and occasional encounters with living legends, there are plenty of things to gripe about. For one, the aforementioned crowds and lines. Comic Con wasn't always the insanely crowded high demand extravaganza that it is today. I remember taking a trolley downtown on a Sunday afternoon and casually strolling into the convention center with practically no wait time in 2005. The following year, my good friend (coincidentally, the same friend whose wedding I'm attending this weekend) had to stand in line for three hours, just barely making it in before they had to cut the line off completely and start turning people away.
Since then, Comic Con has strictly been a "buy tickets in advance" type of event. In 2007, Friday & Saturday passes sold out days in advance. In 2008, all four days were sold out weeks in advance. Now, if you wanna go, you need to register more than half a year in advance because the passes sell out so quickly (many of which are bought by scalpers and sold for huge markups on the black market, a.k.a. eBay). This eliminates the possibility of waiting to see what the guests and panels are gonna be before deciding on going. You have to throw down your hard-earned cash for the sole purpose of attending the convention. Any cool guests or panels that happen to get scheduled are really only an added bonus.
Once you finally make it to the San Diego Convention Center, you find yourself surrounded by tens of thousands of sweaty fans at every turn. Even with the attendance caps, Comic Con is very crowded. It's inevitable, but annoying nonetheless. Walking through the western and central areas of the exhibit hall is an experience comparable to driving north on the 405 during rush hour. You have to deal with the crowds by figuring everything out ahead of time. If there's a panel you really wanna see, you have to head over to the room two or three hours in advance and camp out, and you have to be prepared to spend those two or three hours standing in line.
Going to Hall H on a whim probably isn't going happen. In fact, if you want to see anything in Hall H at any point during the day, it's probably best to just get there first thing in the morning and spend the whole day there. Unfortunately, much of the time, seeing one panel that you want to see means having to skip another panel that you also want to see, even if you have a decent gap of time in between the two. You just have to pick your battles. You're not going to see everything you want to, and the sooner you accept that, the sooner you can stop worrying and enjoy the day.
The increased crowd sizes and higher profile of the event can be explained pretty easily: the convention has been taken over by the entertainment industry. What was once a hardcore yet low-key gathering of nerds and fanboys has changed over the past decade into a preview showcase for every movie distributor, TV channel, and media conglomerate in the country. A-list celebrities and big-name directors talk about their new projects and have Q & A sessions. Studios unveil clips of new movies to the public for the first time. It's where "buzz" and "hype" are created. All the nerdy stuff is still there too, of course. But with each passing year, we see the nerd culture of Comic Con being pushed slightly more to the side.
This year, this trend goes beyond the standard fears of the comic section of the exhibit hall shrinking. The registration price for exhibitors has jumped from $75 to $200 (source: Cartoon Brew), essentially discouraging smaller-scale exhibitors from even being able to attend the event. They've also cracked down on attendees registering as professionals. It used to be that anyone who worked in the entertainment industry got two free passes. Now the passes are reserved for industry professionals with creative/production jobs and a thorough list of credits and credentials. Essentially, they're slowly but surely driving out a significant contingent of the convention's lifeblood. Drive out the independent artists, more room for multibillion-dollar media giants. I shudder to think about what Comic Con will look like in five years.
Let's face it: Comic Con has jumped the shark. The days of it actually being centered around comics have long since passed. Last year, ABC had a panel for a new Patricia Heaton sitcom (the program noted "being a housewife is kinda like being a superhero..."). E! News gives Comic Con recaps and highlights the Monday after the convention ends. Last year's most popular panel was the friggin' Twilight panel. Clearly, something is wrong here.
So how do we remedy the situtation? How can Comic Con get back to its roots? My recommendation: have two conventions. It's a fact that Comic Con has gotten too big. They've expanded slightly by having some panels at the next door Hilton ballroom, but the problems remain. There's been plenty of open speculation about whether the convention will stay in San Diego or head elsewhere in a few years to try to accommodate its growing size. The purists are upset about the convention's shift away from what's supposed to be its main focus.
So let's create a separate convention for all of the high-profile entertainment industry stuff. It can be in San Diego or Los Angeles or Las Vegas or wherever they want to do it. Most of the panels that would normally occupy Hall H and Ballroom 20 can be held in their own separate time and place. All of the studios and organizations and celebrities can converge in one place and present first-hand footage and information for highly-anticipated upcoming projects. It'll still be the second biggest entertainment industry showcase of the year (the Oscars being the biggest). Everyone gets to see the stars, hear the news, and have a great time. Call it Entertainment Con, or whatever.
Meanwhile, let Comic Con be Comic Con. Let the emphasis be on comics, animation, video games, collectibles, art, and general nerd culture. Some products of the mainstream entertainment industry can still be a part of it. 20th Century Fox's Futurama comes to mind as a high-profile program that still fits in at Comic Con. Troma can stay. Bruce Campbell can stay. Hell, we could even keep the panels for blockbuster movies specifically based on comics or video games. And of course, Kevin Smith can still have his annual Q & A session. But honestly, most of the TV and movie panels currently at Comic Con don't really need to be there.
Moving all of the extraneous stuff elsewhere will clear a lot of space in both the panel ballrooms and the main exhibit hall. And of course, leave the damn thing in San Diego! The San Diego Convention Center is the perfect location. The biggest problems with San Diego (crowds, expensive hotels) are the direct results of the insanely high demand for the event. If you carefully scale the whole thing down a little, it'll be a richer, more enjoyable experience for everyone.
Of course, this would mean that much less corporate cash would flow into the event. That shouldn't matter to a non-profit organization like Comic Con, but it will. So the odds of them kicking out the most high-profile exhibitors anytime soon are slim to nil. In the real world, money typically triumphs over integrity.
The voices of discontent grow louder and louder each year. Thousands are clamoring for a return to order that doesn't appear visible anytime soon. But in the meantime, artists, exhibitors, and fans are banding together and attempting to recapture the spirit of what Comic Con once was, as evident in the creation of groups like Creator Con. It could be an interesting time for the creative contingent, the people that make up the true heart and soul of Comic Con. Nerd culture has been co-opted by the giants of the entertainment industry, so artists and like-minded individuals have the opportunity to break free and start something new, something better, something that whole-heartedly celebrates the things that brought Comic Con into existence in the first place.
All that said, I still think that going to Comic Con is generally more of a positive experience than a negative one. So let's hope that Comic Con listens to the concerns of its truest devotees and gets its act together. But if that doesn't happen, it's nice to know that alternatives with more focus and integrity are taking shape out there.
Showing posts with label pop culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pop culture. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
The New Academy Awards Philosophy: The More the Merrier
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recently announced that they would be expanding the field of Best Picture nominees in 2010 from five movies to ten. Their reason was that it was a throwback to the the early years of the Academy Awards, allowing a greater amount of great movies to get the respect they deserve. Maybe the Oscars were about genuinely rewarding talent and hard work in the 30s, but nowadays, they're mostly about publicity.
The most recent Academy Awards are a fine example of how things work. Look at the interesting development of The Reader. It was released as The Weinstein Company's prestige picture for the year. It opened to mixed reviews and its status was generally reduced from contender to also-ran. But the company pushed it so heavily that ultimately, it not only got a Best Picture nomination, but it became one of the top contenders to upset Slumdog Millionaire. All this for a movie generally considered average-to-slightly above average. It just demonstrates how recognition around award time is often based not on how good a movie is, but on the PR skills of the distributor.
Another example of how the Academy Awards work: Fox Searchlight had two big end of the year movies - Slumdog Millionaire and The Wrestler. The Wrestler was gritty and different, Slumdog was flashy and safe. While The Wrestler's December release date positioned it as Fox's big prestige pic of the year, its success was eclipsed by the popularity (and hype) of Slumdog Millionaire. So Fox put most of its marketing money behind Slumdog, while spending a much smaller amount on The Wrestler, almost exclusively revolving around the performance of Mickey Rourke rather than on the film itself. The end result: Slumdog gets a bunch of nominations and ultimately wins Best Picture, while The Wrestler's only nominations were for the performances of Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei, neither of who won.
The expansion of the Best Picture category could potentially fix the problem of movies with smaller marketing budgets not getting proper recognition. However, the more likely scenario is that we would see more nominations for the more popular, fan-friendly movies like The Dark Knight. (Although I'm not bashing The Dark Knight. If you look a few posts down, you'll see that it was my favorite movie of 2008.) People seem to always make a big deal about the Oscar shows always getting low ratings, as if the only purpose of the show was to attract a huge audience. Well, if you throw The Dark Knight and Iron Man into the Best Picture race, more people will watch the show, even if those movies have no chance at actually winning. And in the months leading up to the show, just think of how much extra money and attention the studios can draw to these movies by pointing out that they're "Best Picture nominees!"
Increasing the size serves primarily to give free publicity to the studios and bring in more viewers and ad revenue for the show itself. The fact that a few additional deserving movies might get some additional recognition in the process is merely a side effect. And besides, the Academy rarely gives the award to the movies that really deserve it anyway, so it's not gonna make much of a difference in the long run.
Hey, there's always the Independent Spirit Awards...
The most recent Academy Awards are a fine example of how things work. Look at the interesting development of The Reader. It was released as The Weinstein Company's prestige picture for the year. It opened to mixed reviews and its status was generally reduced from contender to also-ran. But the company pushed it so heavily that ultimately, it not only got a Best Picture nomination, but it became one of the top contenders to upset Slumdog Millionaire. All this for a movie generally considered average-to-slightly above average. It just demonstrates how recognition around award time is often based not on how good a movie is, but on the PR skills of the distributor.
Another example of how the Academy Awards work: Fox Searchlight had two big end of the year movies - Slumdog Millionaire and The Wrestler. The Wrestler was gritty and different, Slumdog was flashy and safe. While The Wrestler's December release date positioned it as Fox's big prestige pic of the year, its success was eclipsed by the popularity (and hype) of Slumdog Millionaire. So Fox put most of its marketing money behind Slumdog, while spending a much smaller amount on The Wrestler, almost exclusively revolving around the performance of Mickey Rourke rather than on the film itself. The end result: Slumdog gets a bunch of nominations and ultimately wins Best Picture, while The Wrestler's only nominations were for the performances of Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei, neither of who won.
The expansion of the Best Picture category could potentially fix the problem of movies with smaller marketing budgets not getting proper recognition. However, the more likely scenario is that we would see more nominations for the more popular, fan-friendly movies like The Dark Knight. (Although I'm not bashing The Dark Knight. If you look a few posts down, you'll see that it was my favorite movie of 2008.) People seem to always make a big deal about the Oscar shows always getting low ratings, as if the only purpose of the show was to attract a huge audience. Well, if you throw The Dark Knight and Iron Man into the Best Picture race, more people will watch the show, even if those movies have no chance at actually winning. And in the months leading up to the show, just think of how much extra money and attention the studios can draw to these movies by pointing out that they're "Best Picture nominees!"
Increasing the size serves primarily to give free publicity to the studios and bring in more viewers and ad revenue for the show itself. The fact that a few additional deserving movies might get some additional recognition in the process is merely a side effect. And besides, the Academy rarely gives the award to the movies that really deserve it anyway, so it's not gonna make much of a difference in the long run.
Hey, there's always the Independent Spirit Awards...
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Kneejerk Reactions to This Year's Oscar Nominations
I was hoping that this year's Academy Award nominations would have a few pleasant surprises scattered throughout the boring, predictable nomniations. But instead, I just find myself needing to vent. So let's go through this category by category:
The full list of nominations can be found here.
Best Picture
Ugh. For the past few weeks, the expected nominations for this category were Slumdog Millionaire, Milk, Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, and The Dark Knight. The Dark Knight always seemed like the wild card in the bunch: a summer blockbuster in the midst of "serious" movies with fall/winter release dates. But it still had enough widespread critical acclaim and excitement generated among the general public to earn it a Best Picture nomination. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case, as it was left it out in favor of The Reader, a paint-by-number prestige picture that's only managed to get mixed reviews. Limited release wonders like Rachel Getting Married, Happy-Go-Lucky, and The Wrestler were predictably ignored, because the Academy only pays attention to studio-financed pictures with buzz and huge PR campaigns surrounding them. As a result, the only surprise nomination that we're left with is one that nobody wanted. Slumdog Millionaire and Benjamin Button are both highly overrated. Slumdog Millionaire, a conventional, predictable fable with nothing you haven't seen before, has positioned itself as this year's front runner, somewhat expectedly racking up ten total nominations. And Benjamin Button, a fairly enjoyable Forrest Gump rehash, somehow picked up THIRTEEN nominations, for which I have to comment, "Really?" I haven't seen Frost/Nixon or The Reader yet, because they just look like standard Oscar bait and I don't have much interest in watching either of them. And that just leaves Milk, the only film in the bunch that might actually deserve to be called great, so hopefully that'll win.
Best Director
Usually, the Best Director category follows a pattern: the directors from four or five of the Best Picture nominees get nominated, and usually one of the directors gets left out of the directing category in favor of a widely-respected director from another movie. This year, the director nominees simply mirror the Best Picture category, which again means that Christopher Nolan gets shafted in favor of The Reader. Danny Boyle gets nominated for making a feature length music video. David Fincher gets nominated for making an Oscar movie that looks and feels about as unspectacular as you can get. And again, I haven't seen Frost/Nixon yet, but Ron Howard? Come on, that guy directed THE DA VINCI CODE for crying out loud. He just throws stuff on the screen without giving any life or depth to any of it. You guys are really considering giving him another Oscar? So again, that just leaves Gus Van Sant, who didn't do an amazing job with Milk, but at least managed to make a totally solid picture. And of course, Jonathan Demme, Mike Leigh, and Darren Aronofsky are forgotten, along plenty of others who produced more interesting work than most of the Best Picture nominees. C'est la vie.
Best Actor
The only omission that immediately comes to my mind is Josh Brolin's awesome performance in W. He totally immersed himself in the character and turned an obvious, mediocre script into a pretty interesting movie. I would've much rather seen him get a nomination than Brad Pitt, whose wooden performance in Benjamin Button can be best described as "a cardboard cutout standing around while everything happens around him." However, it wouldn't be first time that an actor won an award for a dull, hollow, lifeless performance (see: Kevin Spacey, American Beauty). That aside, Mickey Rourke deserves to win, and it's looking like he has a good shot at doing so.
Best Actress
Okay. What the FUCK. I finally saw Happy-Go-Lucky last weekend, and I don't know how it's possible for Sally Hawkins to not get nominated. Like Brolin in W., she gives a memorable performance that serves as the driving force of the entire movie. Oh well, her baffling exclusion means that now I can wholeheartedly root for the lovely Anne Hathaway, who was outstanding in Rachel Getting Married.
Best Supporting Actor
Heath Ledger. He should win. He will win. End of story.
Best Supporting Actress
Rosemarie Dewitt should've been nominated. Other than that, I don't have much of an opinion in this category.
Looking through the other categories, there isn't really that much that stands out, partly because I haven't seen a lot of the movies that are nominated, but also because most of the nonimations just aren't that interesting. There are the usual glaring omissions in technical categories. Two years ago, it was Children of Men losing Best Cinematography to Pan's Labyrinth. This year, it's the fact that The Wrestler's great cinematography wasn't even given a nomination. Stuff like just furthers the impression that Academy voters don't actually WATCH most of these movies before they choose these nominations or vote for the winners. (Fun fact: the movie Wanted got just as many nominations as The Wrestler.) The only other thing that stands out is Bolt getting nominated for Best Animated Feature instead of Waltz With Bashir. Apparently it's illegal for a movie to get nominated in both the Animated and Foreign categories. Oh well, those categories have always been screwy.
I guess writing is therapeutic, because the inital sense of frustration that I felt went I started writing this has now subsided into apathy. In the end, this year's Oscars just follow in the tradition of the previous years. Run of the mill Oscar bait gets recognized, while universally-acclaimed action movies don't. Movies are judged less on skill and talent than they are on media-fueled hype and momentum. Actors and directors are judged less on performance than they are on repsect within the industry, and the all-important "buzz". And most of the genuinely fresh and unique films get passed over in favor of glossy multi-million dollar pictures with a famous cast, or a reputable director, or the backing of a major studio. Same as it ever was.
I'll still probably end up watching though. But I also feel more motivated to find someone with IFC so I can watch the Independent Spirit Awards, which look a lot more interesting than the Oscars this year.
The full list of nominations can be found here.
Best Picture
Ugh. For the past few weeks, the expected nominations for this category were Slumdog Millionaire, Milk, Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, and The Dark Knight. The Dark Knight always seemed like the wild card in the bunch: a summer blockbuster in the midst of "serious" movies with fall/winter release dates. But it still had enough widespread critical acclaim and excitement generated among the general public to earn it a Best Picture nomination. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case, as it was left it out in favor of The Reader, a paint-by-number prestige picture that's only managed to get mixed reviews. Limited release wonders like Rachel Getting Married, Happy-Go-Lucky, and The Wrestler were predictably ignored, because the Academy only pays attention to studio-financed pictures with buzz and huge PR campaigns surrounding them. As a result, the only surprise nomination that we're left with is one that nobody wanted. Slumdog Millionaire and Benjamin Button are both highly overrated. Slumdog Millionaire, a conventional, predictable fable with nothing you haven't seen before, has positioned itself as this year's front runner, somewhat expectedly racking up ten total nominations. And Benjamin Button, a fairly enjoyable Forrest Gump rehash, somehow picked up THIRTEEN nominations, for which I have to comment, "Really?" I haven't seen Frost/Nixon or The Reader yet, because they just look like standard Oscar bait and I don't have much interest in watching either of them. And that just leaves Milk, the only film in the bunch that might actually deserve to be called great, so hopefully that'll win.
Best Director
Usually, the Best Director category follows a pattern: the directors from four or five of the Best Picture nominees get nominated, and usually one of the directors gets left out of the directing category in favor of a widely-respected director from another movie. This year, the director nominees simply mirror the Best Picture category, which again means that Christopher Nolan gets shafted in favor of The Reader. Danny Boyle gets nominated for making a feature length music video. David Fincher gets nominated for making an Oscar movie that looks and feels about as unspectacular as you can get. And again, I haven't seen Frost/Nixon yet, but Ron Howard? Come on, that guy directed THE DA VINCI CODE for crying out loud. He just throws stuff on the screen without giving any life or depth to any of it. You guys are really considering giving him another Oscar? So again, that just leaves Gus Van Sant, who didn't do an amazing job with Milk, but at least managed to make a totally solid picture. And of course, Jonathan Demme, Mike Leigh, and Darren Aronofsky are forgotten, along plenty of others who produced more interesting work than most of the Best Picture nominees. C'est la vie.
Best Actor
The only omission that immediately comes to my mind is Josh Brolin's awesome performance in W. He totally immersed himself in the character and turned an obvious, mediocre script into a pretty interesting movie. I would've much rather seen him get a nomination than Brad Pitt, whose wooden performance in Benjamin Button can be best described as "a cardboard cutout standing around while everything happens around him." However, it wouldn't be first time that an actor won an award for a dull, hollow, lifeless performance (see: Kevin Spacey, American Beauty). That aside, Mickey Rourke deserves to win, and it's looking like he has a good shot at doing so.
Best Actress
Okay. What the FUCK. I finally saw Happy-Go-Lucky last weekend, and I don't know how it's possible for Sally Hawkins to not get nominated. Like Brolin in W., she gives a memorable performance that serves as the driving force of the entire movie. Oh well, her baffling exclusion means that now I can wholeheartedly root for the lovely Anne Hathaway, who was outstanding in Rachel Getting Married.
Best Supporting Actor
Heath Ledger. He should win. He will win. End of story.
Best Supporting Actress
Rosemarie Dewitt should've been nominated. Other than that, I don't have much of an opinion in this category.
Looking through the other categories, there isn't really that much that stands out, partly because I haven't seen a lot of the movies that are nominated, but also because most of the nonimations just aren't that interesting. There are the usual glaring omissions in technical categories. Two years ago, it was Children of Men losing Best Cinematography to Pan's Labyrinth. This year, it's the fact that The Wrestler's great cinematography wasn't even given a nomination. Stuff like just furthers the impression that Academy voters don't actually WATCH most of these movies before they choose these nominations or vote for the winners. (Fun fact: the movie Wanted got just as many nominations as The Wrestler.) The only other thing that stands out is Bolt getting nominated for Best Animated Feature instead of Waltz With Bashir. Apparently it's illegal for a movie to get nominated in both the Animated and Foreign categories. Oh well, those categories have always been screwy.
I guess writing is therapeutic, because the inital sense of frustration that I felt went I started writing this has now subsided into apathy. In the end, this year's Oscars just follow in the tradition of the previous years. Run of the mill Oscar bait gets recognized, while universally-acclaimed action movies don't. Movies are judged less on skill and talent than they are on media-fueled hype and momentum. Actors and directors are judged less on performance than they are on repsect within the industry, and the all-important "buzz". And most of the genuinely fresh and unique films get passed over in favor of glossy multi-million dollar pictures with a famous cast, or a reputable director, or the backing of a major studio. Same as it ever was.
I'll still probably end up watching though. But I also feel more motivated to find someone with IFC so I can watch the Independent Spirit Awards, which look a lot more interesting than the Oscars this year.
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