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Amazon's Best Picture Oscar Nod Makes History For Streaming Media (fortune.com)
Hollywood is buzzing after Tuesday morning's long-awaited Oscar nominations announcements, finally revealing who will be competing for an Academy Award on Feb. 26. One of the biggest stories of the morning was the nominations haul scored by e-commerce giant Amazon and its streaming video arm, Amazon Studios. From a report: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave Amazon's big Oscar contender, director Kenneth Lonergan's devastating drama Manchester by the Sea, six total nominations on Tuesday. Manchester by the Sea, which Amazon co-distributed with indie studio Roadside Attractions, is nominated for Best Picture, while Lonergan is nominated in both the directing and original screenplay categories. Actors Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, and Lucas Hedges all also scored acting category nods. In total, Amazon has seven nominations, with the Iranian thriller The Salesman -- which Amazon is distributing in the U.S. -- up for Best Foreign Picture. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has made no secret about his desire to win an Academy Award -- an accomplishment no streaming service has yet pulled off -- and the company has spent a lot of money building out its portfolio of original feature films as it looks to compete with more traditional Hollywood studios. Last year, Amazon saw its Oscar hopes dashed after the company's collaboration with director Spike Lee on the film Chi-Raq failed to garner any nominations. But Amazon also spent a reported $10 million on the distribution rights to Manchester by the Sea at last year's Sundance Film Festival.
And on top of that, according to the summary, all Amazon did was purchase distribution rights to the movie. They weren't involved in creating it in any way. They didn't earn an Oscar nomination, they bought one.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
More like Hollywood's annual mutual masturbation party.
It is interesting that you are able to describe an entire movie, yet still miss it what it was about.
I say this not as a criticism, because you sound like a smart person, you were obviously paying close attention, and you write about it very well. It is just very interesting because you clearly had some expectations about what the movie would be about, and those expectations were completely unfilled.
What you may not have been expecting is to see a movie that is entirely about EMOTION. Not plot. Not dialog. Not even characters, really. The plot, such as it is, is about intertwining emotional journeys, not physical ones. Each of the time jumps follows a clear arc in that journey, almost literally step by step. You have to jump through time -- you have to! -- to understand how each character wound up where they are today, and where they are going. That's because emotional development lags outward events, sometimes by years and years. And sometimes, outward events continue on, but emotional development stops in its tracks.
This is probably not a young person's movie, and again I say that with no disrespect intended. But I think you have to have some life experience with how discontinuous emotional development and outward events truly are, if you are going to appreciate this movie.
Let me just one other thing that might help. The intentional use of the long shots, the shots from a distance, vs. the shots close up are used to reflect the inner, emotional state you are supposed to be feeling. If the director wants you to feel detached, the camera sits back to audience-at-a-play distance, and events play out flatly. If he wants you to feel like you're gaining some insight, he uses a long lens with a close up, as if you're listening inside someone's head. It's really quite brilliantly done. And notice that the only time you really feel the full, borderless, bright light is when they are in the boat. The camera then pulls way out so you can take it all in. You're supposed to feel unbounded and free, which explains why the boat is so important in the emotional story. On land, everything is sad and laden. But we can't be sad all the time, there must be some release. The sea is that.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday