By Joel Meares
There was a time in my life when I didn't know what an SAG Award was. I didn't know what one looked like, or that SAG stood for the American Screen Actors Guild, and that those on whom the guild bestowed awards for acting every year were considered frontrunners for the Academy Awards.
I certainly didn't know that no film has won Best Picture at the Oscars without first being nominated for Best Ensemble at the SAGs since 1996 – a fact I recently learned and one that does not bode well for La La Land, the musical critical sensation whose ensemble the guild did not recognise this year.
Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone in summer favourite La La Land.Credit: AP
There was a time when I didn't know much about the Oscars race at all, and I knew nothing of awards like the SAGs and BAFTAs that collectively form its playoff season, setting betting odds and defining frontrunners.
What a gloriously innocent movie going time it was, too. Back then, I would emerge excitedly from a cinema thinking, "That was great". Today, I often toddle out muttering, "Well, it was good, but I don't see how she can beat Natalie Portman for Best Actress. It's got Best Sound Mixing in the bag, though."
Nicole Kidman (left) and Emma Stone are prime contenders during awards season.Credit: Getty Images
There are many forces in this age of Extreme Information that are retooling our brains: Porn-at-our-fingertips is reformatting the way many people think of sex; fake news is shaping the way some people vote. For me, an overabundance of information has reshaped my brain when it comes to watching the movies – particularly during "awards season". Suddenly, I find myself struggling, too well informed to enjoy them.
When the Academy Award nominations are announced on January 24 in Los Angeles, I'm not expecting to be surprised. I know that La La Land, Moonlight and Manchester by the Sea are locks for Best Picture noms; and that Emma Stone and Casey Affleck are where the smart acting money is going.
I know this because for the past six months, I have been obsessing over "the Oscars race". Like a US election, it's a never-ending thing. It begins before last year's awards even take place with "Oscar buzz" humming out of film festivals such as Sundance (which starts this week) and continues throughout the year until the many-month climax of awards shows –like the SAGs, which I now know a helluva lot about – and critics' choices.
I am a particularly avid follower of the race's ups and downs, reading certain Oscar-predicting bloggers and tuning in regularly to websites such as Goldderby, which tracks winners' odds in each category based on editors', experts' and the website's users' opinions. It's catnip for the Oscars nerd: you can even track how those odds have changed, week by week, throughout the year, in the website's Time Machine.
But even if you are not as excited by the Oscar race as I am, it's difficult to escape its twists and turns. At a certain point in the year, we are all bombarded with film stories that are all about the race – did Nicole damage her chances with those Trump comments? Does Oscars behemoth La La Land really deserve all that buzz? The race becomes the sexy angle around which almost all stories are framed; the internet the global megaphone by which those stories are amplified.
By the time these films open in Australia, they are definitively "Oscar" films. Some were manufactured this way – see, Lion – others earn the title more organically. But when the lights go down at your multiplex and we open on Nicole, Emma or Natalie, you're almost certainly aware you're sitting down to a contender.
I'm also usually aware I'm sitting down for two hours that will be more like homework than the joyful trips to the cinema I made as a child. "This cinematography is good," I will think, unmoved by what's in the frame, "But is it Oscars good?" "I love the score," I will say, failing to be swept up by it, "But it's not quite as good as Jackie's." I've become the guy who says "that's funny" rather than laughs.
In post-screening discussions, everything is relative: performances, direction and even the degree to which I was moved. (Moonlight gut-punched me more than La La Land, if you're curious.) And when the discussion is over, I'll seek out some online think pieces to confirm, or disrupt, my point of view.
The thing that gets lost in this race, and our growing interest in it, is often the racers themselves – these incredible films. Not their constituent parts, nor their award-worthiness: but the experience of watching them, without any other noise or interference; the experience of being completely moved or delighted. I'm often too busy picking them apart, and pitting them against each other, to fully appreciate what makes them contenders in the first place.
Next year, I am committing to – as much as possible – avoiding the race altogether. I will follow advice on what's good and worth seeing, but am putting the kibosh on reading Goldderby. And as far as I'm concerned, the 2017 SAGs do not exist.
I don't think I'll be missing out on much. I can remember a bunch of great films I saw during last year's Oscar season: Brooklyn, Mad Max: Fury Road, Spotlight. I remember them now, and their impact, away from the heat of the race. Ask me who won the Oscar, though, and I wouldn't be able to tell you.