…so don’t go the Oscars. Screeners for Million Dollar Baby and Sideways weren’t sent out to BAFTA voters, and, as a result, the former ended up receiving zero BAFTA nods and the latter received only one. Nonetheless, Sideways got five Oscar nominations, and Million Dollar Baby got seven. As I mentioned in a previous post, running up a string of awards can help plant a film in the minds of the voters of other shows; but as these two films show, if your ultimate goal is that Oscar nomination, you don’t have to run the table of all previous awards shows.
But note that The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou didn’t get a single Oscar nomination. Is it because Wes Anderson just isn’t to the Academy’s taste? Maybe–but the fact that he got an Oscar nomination for The Royal Tanenbaums makes that unlikely. I’m willing to bet that BVI sent out those same utterly unwatchable screeners to Oscar voters.
Historians, take note: Wes Anderson may just have become the first filmmaker to lose a shot at an Oscar through an anti-piracy scheme.