Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/03/25/the-oscars-speech-for-best-f.html
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This video does a good job of explaining why the editing is so poor in this film. But as the video says, when editing is done well, it’s not something you notice, so it’s a really difficult thing to judge… which is why the Oscar for “best editing” often goes to a movie with the most noticeable or frequent editing instead.
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When I saw the movie, I thought it looked like they were trying to edit a mess of footage for one movie into a different story. Maybe that editor did magic with what he had, but it was not a great result.
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I’d like to see complimentary creative edits of this year’s speeches of Spike Lee and Jeff Bridges.
Spike Lee’s felt like he was sitting on a couch in my living room. He reminds me of my most down to earth high school teachers.
Bridges seemed to be going off on a flying carpet, but in the end I thought he really tied the room together.
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Meanwhile, John Ottman has an Oscar, while this person has a YouTube channel. Just saying.
Because clearly an Oscar is a barometer for talent.
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I’ve herd it argued that maybe the source material was so bad that the resulting editing is actually very good despite appearances. Given everyone involved I wouldn’t be surprised.
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This is the laziest attempt at criticism actually possible on the internet. Congratulations, we award you the Oscar for ‘Laziest Critical Comment on a Web Forum’.
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Is every Oscar deserved? Clearly not. But if you’re gonna compare the people who have won an Oscar to the people who make YouTube videos with someone else’s music over still images (i.e., what the “satirist” here does when they’re not making fun of someone else’s job), I’m gonna bet the former pool has a bit more talent.
The incessant dissing of the editing of this single 90-second scene in a 2+ hour movie is a bit odd frankly. It’s a technical Oscar. To win didn’t he have to be nominated by other professional editors? Presumably they thought his handling of the rest of the movie, other scenes etc. were enough to ignore this one? Or maybe they think something else entirely and thought it was good? I don’t know for sure. But certainly it feels like maybe it’s time to let this one go.
The Oscars are voted on by the entire body of the Academy, not just fellow editors, so most of the votes are from actors, producers, writers, etc. who are are sent screeners to review. As other articles have pointed out, while there’s plenty of scenes of workmanlike editing in the film, there’s also tons of unnecessarily rapid-fire cutting as well, as if the editor and replacement director inherited a half-done poorly-directed film and tried to salvage it.
I thought they got nominated first by other editors, then voted on by the Academy? Either way it does seem like this is a topic that’s getting way more attention than it deserves. I suspect it’s really more about some general critical objection to the movie as a whole, made extra venomous by its huge commercial success
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As I understand it, editors nominate all films they think should be eligible, which are narrowed down to a shortlist, voted on by the full Academy, narrowed down, then voted on again until they’re down to five.
I think a lot of people were just very surprised that a movie known for bizarre, amateurish action-sequence-style cutting during its dialog scenes would win an award for the best editing of the year.
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Nope. Nominees are determined through ranked choice voting by the relevant branch of the Academy. Aside from Best Picture, the full Academy only votes on the final awards and not nominations.
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Sure, having all the time in the world to faff about editing is way harder than scrubbing over bad footage with a studio, producers, and a director mucking about and asking if you’re done yet. It’s a different limitation but it’s not “far greater.”
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