While the gap between critics and audiences continues to widen, it remains well-nigh impossible for a movie with mixed reviews to get a Best Picture nomination, which may explain, among other things, why the Herd is all but ignoring Downsizing (currently hovering around 60% on Rotten Tomatoes). But do these professional prognosticators actually know anything? That was one of the questions posed during a recent conversation with one of filmdom’s most highly regarded critics.
HIGHLY REGARDED CRITIC Yes, well, some of these people are my friends, but…they start predicting on New Year’s Day, even though they haven’t seen any of the movies. And they have all these flowcharts and graphs, and it all looks very scientific, but it’s total bullshit. And then after the Oscars, very few of them will own up to the fact that they were dead wrong.
NOLAN POWERS Are the critics any better?
HRC No. We outsmart ourselves. You think people are going to vote for a movie because you liked it.
NP Do you participate in Oscar pools?
HRC Sometimes. When I first moved out to L.A., I went to an Oscar party at Haskell Wexler’s house. It was 1974, the year of Chinatown. Everybody thought Jack Nicholson was going to win, except this one guy. “I don’t know, I love The Honeymooners, I’m voting for Art Carney.”
NP And he won.
HRC For Harry and Tonto.
NP What year did The Sound of Music win? I remember Pauline Kael panned it.
HRC 1965. She called it The Sound of Money.
NP And got fired by McCall’s. She misjudged her readership.
HRC It was a comically bad fit to begin with.
NP Do you think critics tend to tailor their reviews to fit their audience?
HRC Well, if you work for a publication that wants you to favor movies that their audience will like, then you’re a consumer guide, under the lash. In the old days, trade critics had to be careful not to pan movies where studios were buying ads. It was the rare editor who would stand by you if you did.
NP I would bet that Middle American critics liked Wonder better than critics on the coasts. Not to beat Lady Bird over the head, but I liked Wonder much better.
HRC Yeah, I thought Lady Bird was kinda thin. One of the many puzzlers this year.
NP Call Me by Your Name.
HRC Yeah, that kid? Best Actor? Better than Daniel Day-Lewis?
NP Or Jake. After Stronger, people were saying, this is Jake’s Oscar year. In spite of Okja.
HRC He gave the Best Performance of the year, and the Worst Performance.
NP They’re pushing Timothée hard. Did these Oscar lunches ramp up when Harvey came along?
HRC Yes, they got more lavish. The studios felt they had to compete.
NP And now, so far, the stars don’t table-hop at these affairs. Melissa Leo worked the patio at Estrella, but she mostly zeroed in on people she knew.
HRC That could be an attempt to show some un-Harveylike decorum.
NP I have a theory why people are so fanatic about their opinions.
HRC OK, let’s hear it.
NP It dates back to cave days, when people were foraging for food. Is this mushroom good to eat or is it poisonous? Opinions were a matter of life and death. The people with the right opinions survived.
HRC You know what? I like that theory.
First published in The Ankler.