Brandon Gray is the webmaster of boxofficemojo.com
http://boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=1742&p=.htm

I actually agree alot with his points about this year not having any big movies unlike previous years that hurt the oscars. While many here in these forums may not agree with me, The Passion and F911 should of gotten more nominations and awards.

Shockingly, he made a lot of sense. M$B did not have the Oscar bounce it should have, and is ranked right down there with the worst of them in those terms. It appears the M$B backlash is in full effect.

Great article. I think he's completely right.

Isn't BOM supposed to be an icon of sterility, with no opinons at all?

The Passion should have swept. God knows that



Sounds pretty opinonated to me
If The Aviator had won maybe he'd sing a different tune?

And that article was.... well lets just say Brandon really really knows how to be a self indulgent writer ; he crams more big words into every sentence than i had thought to be possible - infact a few stray sentences dont make much sense, and are instead a serious of perplexing and indiscriminate words plastered together to sound smart.

It annoys me when writers feel the need to write in pretentious ways when it dosent do anything to enrichen the articles; it shows intullecturalralal arrogance that is usually unwarranted.

Please tell me that was a satire. #-o

I can hardly say in all honesty that i have an inkling as to what your implying about my contemplative article on the total lack of complexictatiaons that Mr Gray puts on titipolconation

Really doesn't the above make him sound alittle biased.

I find it a bit tragic that a site which champions tracking of art, distilling it to mere numbers, and then making their living off that data could say that anything like the Academy Awards is "meaningless". I mean, talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

The Academy Awards are an industry award given by peers of the contestants to award merit in a certain field. That's it. Any power we the public give to it is really our own problem. It is not an accurate measure of public taste and approval. Brandon here makes a case that because things like popularity, campaigns and box office play a role (and I agree that they do) that the Academy Awards are somewhat bound to choosing something that fits within those boundries every time. Million Dollar Baby, in many ways, does not. (and still they call this reward predictable? eh!).

No mention of Sideways, which is seeing incredible numbers due to its exposure. No mention of Ray which, from my understanding, is still doing insane business on DVD. But we don't care about nominees do we. The only metric that matters here is Best Picture apparently.

He choose to say that the awards were meaningless, then he bothers to complain about Scorsese not winning and Clint Eastwood being smug. What? It's incredibly bad form and exposes all I need to know about his biases regarding these two filmmakers. If you are going to say that the award is meaningless, then it is always meaningless. No complaining when your horse doesn't cross the finish line.

So what is he really complaining about here? A lot of money is based on nominations. Jamie Foxx will make his next few pictures more money because of his wins last year. Clint Eastwood's next film might get a little more public awareness. Because Rob Marshall's Chicago won best picture, Memoirs of a Geisha may become something that could finally be made and sold. Sofia Coppola's next film will have an automatic awareness and drive her next picture to a little bit higher gross because of Lost in Translation. To say that the Academy Awards are meaningless just ISN'T true.

The tired argument that you can't judge quality based soley on awards? Big surprise there! Is then judging them based on their box office receipts and critisizing the Academy because the picture didn't make "x" amount of money fair? Million Dollar Baby is of note, like 2004 is of note because there was no breakout smash hit nominated. But no scientist would buy the argument that the Awards is meaningless from a box office perspective based on ONE YEAR of data.

The whole article is rather silly and transparent.

The point is, the Oscars are stupid. And it's a fact because nobody gave a shit this year. It was low rated, disliked, ignored, and nobody bothered to go see their force-fed idea of "fine movie making". The Oscar bumps are depressed at the box office, and there just isn't any reason for anyone to care. Its been the same thing for years now. "Oh, this is going to be such a roller coaster! I think this could be the Black Oscars!" Every year, same BS, same old stuff. I don't think America cares. And the glamour is definately gone.

If that's the point, then he should have said it, and not try to hide behind weird metrics.


41.5 million people gave a shit.


It was low rated for a recent Oscar broadcast. 41.5 million viewers still enabled it to take Neilson for the week. And according to Baltimore Sun (http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainme ... &cset=true) ...

"Even though Sunday's Oscar telecast was watched by more viewers than any other entertainment show of the year..."

If we want to talk about the general downward trends of TV viewing loyalty and tie that in with smaller crowd sizes, we have a long road ahead of us. The apathy is universal, it is NOT a complete picture of the perception of the Oscars as an event.


This comment has nothing to do with the topic. The Oscars are not meaningless in that they do have an impact on what films are made, how films are marketed and how studios sell projects (think this year's upcoming Cinderalla Man). Too many decisions are made based on their outcome and too much of the current schedual revolves around them. Whether or not you personally like the Oscars, or feel they should be impactful is really a separate issue.

As much as I loved Million Dollar Baby, does ANYBODY here think that it or The Aviator would have made upwards of 80-ish million dollars without the impact of awards and Oscar buzz?

The Oscars and their relationship to the movies that are nominated/buzzed is very much like a "what comes first, the chicken or the egg?" scenario.

Oscars arent meaningless, all of the nominees wouldnt have what they have right now if it wasnt for the oscar buzz, basically every movie that was nominated ( except for Ray ) had very small drops or increases week by week because of the oscar buzz. Dont try to say otherwise, just look how well MDB, Aviator, and Sideways held pre-oscar, it wasnt just because, it was because of the oscars.

I think more and more people are becoming disillusioned by the oscars though ; they go to see a film thats emmitting more buzz than a power plant and when they come out, they are tired, bored and exhausted by the overlong, overdull experience.

There seems to be some kind of unwritten rule that most academy award favourites should have consitently strong film making, but little entertainment value.

Audiences dont hold clipboards when they see films. The sooner the Oscars realise that the better.

I still think on that whole site, brandon is really the only good writer and somewhat credible.

Good writing dosen't require you to become lost in elaborations using big words; Brandon just tries to gratify himself with his writing and it shows.

Its just another reason why BOM is so hostile and sterile - its all some ego trip for Brandon and Sean

by good writer, i dont mean he can make coherent readable sentences. Even Scott can do that. By good writer, i mean he can stay on the subject and use the relevant information required.

Brandon is the only one on that site where all his articles are related to just numbers. The oscar article is also pretty much about the number game. when he says oscars dont matter, i recall him talking about only in terms of box offices (then again, i read it the day it came out and read a more oscar analysis since then). In that respect, i always consider brandon a good writer. He has focus (his numbers only) and sticks to those ....

Did you read what Scott had to say .... that man is becoming more and more laughable. which sucks. While chud and joblo sites can get away with that, BOm can't. they're numbers, facts .. theres no place for such an opinionated (and that too a pretty crappy opinion) for those. While even an opinionated article is cool from the point of view at looking at factors that influence movies, scott only talks from his personal feelings ... thats it. hes rather ridiculus.

I was just about to say that. In a less eloquent manner, of course. Heh.

Speaking of "meaningless", I wonder what Brandon's commentary is about how his webmaster, Sean "Puffy Combs" Saulsbury destroyed his website's forums , all while several members where pleading with Brandon to do something to stop the tyranny, only to be ignored?

:laugh:

Boxofficemojo has shot itself in the foot by wanting its cake and eating it - it want's to be this prime of corporate internet; it wants to be unbias, it wants to show the facts. But then whenever someone feels like asserting their opinon its like woaahhh hold on, didnt you ban half your community for..having different opinons? So how about you take your salsbury steak and shove it right up your....