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January 05, 2009
Top Ten Lists - First Look
It is an odd moment when I realize that I have not looked at our list of Top Ten lists this year. This is the first year that I have not been hands-on, posting and tallying.
Ahhhhhhh....
Anyway, not too many surprises here. But there is The Oscar Thing, which seems to happen every year. The critics lists we chart lasso in the nominees. In six years of charting, the only three major outliers (past 11) are Ray (16), Seabiscuit (19), and last year’s Michael Clayton (15).
Again... no film lower than #19 has been nominated in our six years charting Top Tens.
Interestingly, in our first year, with a smaller list, the correlation at the top was less accurate. We’ve aimed more at the middle and it seems to capture a broader sense of how people feel now.
How the rankings matched up each year…
2003... 6, 7, 8, 10, 11
2004... 1,2,3,8, 19
2005… 1.2.4.13, 16
2006... 1,3,4,7,8
2007... 2,3,4,7,8
2008... 1, 2, 6, 7, 15
My take on why this does have some value is that Top Ten lists measure passion, not just quality. And they are influenced by the end of the year push, but are not overwhelmed… just like The Academy.
Remember, Academy voters vote for their Top 5, but it is rare (if not unheard of) for those #5 votes to ever be counted... and usually not the #4s. So passion matters. To get in, you likely need a lot of votes in the Top 3s. Passion.
The only #1s that have missed were Far From Heaven and United 93.
So what does this mean this year?
Well, #1 this year is Wall-E, by quite a distance. So, it looks like it may be one of those years.
Ranks of the BP Faves?
2. The Dark Knight
3. Slumdog Millionaire
4. Milk
6. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
11. Frost/Nixon
And what of Doubt? Down at #31. Not a great sign.
Revolutionary Road is up at #19, Rachel Getting Married at #8, The Wrestler at #5, Che’ at #27, Gran Torino at #28, Happy-Go-Lucky at #7, likely doc winner Man on Wire at #9, The Reader at #32.
What do our #16 and #19 outliers that got in have in common? Strong box office well before ballots went out and a ton of advertising money designed to pass the critics by. But #31 or #32? #19 (even though that matches our lowest ranked BP nominee ever)? Very unlikely. None of them over $20 million. Very unlikely.
I’m not arguing that the list creates cause and effect. Just that there is this reality floating out there. Movies have made less, but have been higher ranked. Movies have been lower ranked, but made more.
Of course, last year, I was worried that Michael Clayton might not make the cut because it was so low in this list… and it got in over some higher ranked contenders like The Diving Bell & the Butterfly and Into The Wild. But again… that was at #15… not double that.
Anyway… I haven’t made it onto our own chart. Either has Wilmington, Pride, Voynar, Klady, Dretzka, or Forrest. Maybe I should call somebody?
Posted by dpoland at January 5, 2009 08:07 PM
Comments
Dave, if you tabulate the aggregate top tens with a preferential ballot like the academy uses instead of the inverted point system how does that change the matchups of the list? meaning, would some of those outlier best picture nominations be ranked significantly higher under a preferential ballot?
Posted by: movielocke ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/nav-commenters.gif)
at January 6, 2009 12:29 AM
This is a good question. Dave can you post a downloadable tabulated excel version of the chart so movielocke's questions can be answered?
Posted by: ochesnut at January 6, 2009 10:13 AM
I'm a little obsesssive, so I tabulated the lists using the preferential system. (You have to cut the lists to their top fives, and then eliminate the people who listed movies without ranking them. So it reduces the total number of lists slightly.)
If you tabulate them that way, "Dark Knight" jumps "Wall-E" to take the #1 spot, "Wall-E" slips to #2, "Slumdog Millionaire" and "Milk" stay at #3 and #4, and "A Christmas Tale" jumps all the way from #12 to #5.
Posted by: Toby Kwimper at January 6, 2009 10:58 AM
I love you, Toby.
So assuming that Wall-E and A Christmas Tale don't make it, what would be the next two presumed contenders to slide in?
Posted by: David Poland at January 6, 2009 12:09 PM
Happy Go Lucky and The Wrestler finish 6th and 7th if you tabulate the lists using the preferential system. Followed by Rachel Getting Married, Benjamin Button and Synecdoche, NY.
Frost/Nixon drops all the way out of the top 20. Doubt is nowhere to be seen, eliminated in the first round. Che jumps all the way up to #11 from your #27, where it's essentially tied with Waltz with Bashir.
As for what this means for the Oscars...who the hell knows?
Posted by: Toby Kwimper at January 6, 2009 01:04 PM
full disclosure, I got the idea after reading an LATimes article from 2005/6 that discussed the preferential ballot system and used MCN's list refigured under the preferential ballot to show how Munich could vault into the top five. Awards Daily linked it for their preferential ballot contest they're running. :-P
http://theenvelope.latimes.com/awards/oscars/2006/env-oscarvote7jan07,0,6335344.story
Still, very cool to see, Toby. I'd been thinking that Doubt was the shifty little nominee waiting to pounce on a weaker than expected Dark Knight slot, but it could be the Wrestler instead. Certainly Aronofsky seems best positioned to take the lone director slot.
Perhaps Wall*E will pull a Beauty and the Beast? maybe Beauty and the Beast wasn't a 'lucky fifth' nominee, it could easily have been the dominate #1 vote getter. Interesting how everyone always seems to assume Beauty and the Beast was lucky to be nominated, looking at the other nominees, I could easily believe BatB had more passionate support during the nominations process than a February release, a complicated/controversial political film, or a highly trumpeted female-celeb-directed awards bait, or another celeb awards-bait vanity project. Wall*E is not in the same position, but there's enough similarity where I could imagine that the "once in a blue moon" scenario that has to happen for an animated film to get the 1 and 2 votes it needs could be in place this year. But I'm still not buying a WallE nomination, even as an alternate. :-P
Posted by: movielocke at January 6, 2009 03:05 PM
Yeah thanks Toby. I too thought that Doubt might sneak in, but perhaps not. Where was Rev Road in the list?
Posted by: ochesnut at January 8, 2009 09:59 PM
Revolutionary Rd. ended up tied for 19th with Silent Light. It only had 4 first-place votes, I think, and didn't pick up any new ones in the first few rounds of redistribution. So it was eliminated after the fourth round, out of the 11-12 rounds needed to get down to five nominees.
Posted by: Toby Kwimper at January 8, 2009 11:20 PM
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