Another day and some more award season activity for Star Trek. First up the Austin Film Critics Association has named JJ Abrams Star Trek as one of the top 10 films of the year, unfortunately a number of new city critics groups lists had no Star Trek. And out there in the mainstream, Twitter has relased their trending topics of the year and Star Trek is on that list too, more details below.
Austin critics likes Trek – but not Toronto, Dallas San Diego, & Chicago
The Austin Film Critics released their top 10 films of the year, and Star Trek came in at #2. Here is the full list (via austinfilmcritics.org)
Austin Critics Top 10 Films:
1. The Hurt Locker (Summit)
2. Star Trek (Paramount)
3. Up (Pixar)
4. A Serious Man (Focus)
5. Up in the Air (Paramount)
6. Avatar (20th Century Fox)
7. Inglourious Basterds (The Weinstein Co.)
8. District 9 (TriStar)
9. Where the Wild Things Are (Warner Bros.)
10. (tie) Moon (Sony Pictures Classic), The Messenger (Oscilloscope)
However critics groups from Chicago, Toronto, San Diego, and Dallas-Fort Worth all announced nominations or winners for their awards, and no Star Trek on any of the lists.
The next Award Season event will be the Screen Actors Guild nominations announcement tomorrow. The only award that Star Trek has a chance at for that would be the cast/ensemble award.
Star Trek #5 Trending Twitter Movie topic
Recently we reported that Star Trek was the #5 Movie Search for the year, via the Google Zeitgest report. Apparently the online Star Trek chatter also applies to Twitter, who have released their top trending topics for the year. Here is their movies list
Twitter Top Movie Trending Topics 2009
- 1. Harry Potter
- 2. New Moon
- 3. District 9
- 4. Paranormal Activity
- 5. Star Trek
- 6. True Blood
- 7. Transformers 2
- 8. Watchmen
- 9. Slumdog Millionaire
- 10. GI Joe
By the way Twitter, isn’t True Blood a TV show?
More Golden Globes Fallout
As noted on Monday, Access Hollywood and the Hollywood Reporter (with James Cameron agreeing) noted the lack of Star Trek in the Golden Globes announcement. Now E Online also picks up the meme that in recent years the award season voters are ignoring good films that are popular. Here is an excerpt:
Hollywood knows you liked New Moon and Star Trek and Transformers 2—it’s wallowing around in all that Twilight cash as I write this. But by nominating brutal fare like Precious and Hurt Locker for Globes and (I’m sure) Oscars, it’s saying, "Here’s what you should like—ya tools."
Fools – Look at ST as a FILM and it will get nods for awards.
#1
They are, but in their minds it doesn’t qualify.
I see TrekXI only getting a few technical awards like costuming/makeup and maybe sound editing, but that’s about it.
#3 Ceti Alpha %
I agree. With Avatar being touted as a potential Best Picture Oscar nominee, Star Trek seems less and less likely to be nominated in that category. Actually, I think it all depends now on whether or not they want to nominate Nine as Best Picture. That movie hasn’t been getting great reviews, so I’m holding out hope that it won’t be nominated, leaving more room for Trek. I also hope they leave Up in the Best Animated Film category and leave it out of Best Picture.
Assuming they don’t nominate Nine, here are the movies I see being nominated by the Oscars for Best Picture:
* (500) Days of Summer
* Avatar
* An Education
* The Hurt Locker
* Inglourious Basterds
* Invictus
* Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire
* A Serious Man
* Star Trek
* Up in the Air
Again, though, they’ll probably end up nominating Nine, leaving Trek out in the cold. I would hate to think they nominated Nine just because of its talent rather than its quality, but if they do, that will be the only reason because it sure doesn’t seem to be deserving of a Best Picture nod.
Why do films have to be brutal and ultimately depressing in order to be ‘good’? I don’t subscribe to that theory.
It never had a chance for anything more than tech or music awards….and to be honest, it doesn’t really deserve it….it was fun but it’s just a decent popcorn movie.
Agreed #1 & #5 –
Red shirt, you were gone before the end of the movie, so you don’t count. Sorry. :)
It got an 83% on Metacritic and a 95% on rottentomatoes.com AND was the 6th highest grossing movie of the year. Only one movie had higher critical AND box office acclaim: Up.
If the consensus of over 300 critics including the nation’s top, most-respected and most well-known ones, the movie-going public, the National Board of Review, the Boston Film Critics, the Broadcast Film Critics Association of America, and the Austin Critics mean anything…
Well, it’s all of these opinions versus some people’s “certainty” (I for one reserve judgment in any event as I have yet to see all of these other films, but all have been reviewed so far and this is one year where the claim “it’s only an entertaining science fiction/action movie; nothing great” seems to be belied by the facts.
But then again, ignorance, prejudice, and consistency of critical standards (in terms of evaluating each movie by the same critical standards, not by automatically giving one a higher score out of the gate because it’s of a certain genre and not by automatically giving one a lower score out of the gate because it’s of a certain genre) don’t have the same appeal as facts do. Sad.
Unfortuneately, there is also another factor in whether a movie gets nominated: women. Most Golden Globe and Oscar winners barring “Lord of The Rings: Return of the King”, usually appeal more to women than men. Such as “Million Dollar Baby” and “Shakespeare In Love. As well as “Chicago”. Sentimentality and emotion often win awards even though there are superior all-round movies. “Nine” will ultimately prove to be a bigger hit among women than “Star Trek”.In other words, if “Star Trek” wants to be nominated in the future, then J.J Abrams will have to do more work to attract women. Even though this movie brought in more female viewers than previous films, it still is a mostly boys club. A lot of critics are female and many weren’t thrilled with this movie for some reason. And it didn’t have anything to do with Uhura wearing a short skirt. On the other hand, perhaps creating a plus-sized character might do the trick. Make a character more relateable to women. That is the ingredient for many Oscar winners.
Just gotta say… I’m damn proud to live in a city as cool as Austin!
(But still kicking myself for missing the sneak premiere at the Alamo with Nimoy.)
unfortunately some of the better Treks only got nominations in the technical areas, I have always wanted Star Trek to get more creative nominations in the Emmys or Oscars, many actors on the shows deserved the wins.
Unfortunately i don’t see it changing, if better Trek movies cant get the nominations then what makes it any different that this one would get the Oscar nomination for best picture.
Closest Trek came to this high a nom was season 7 of TNG being nominated for best dramatic season.
Now if Trek XI got the best picture nomination I will be thrilled, there is no denying that as i do like the film.
All I ask is for people to remember there is 40 years worth of Trek before this movie, this new movie is not the be all of Trek now.
Reality is setting in. The Hollywood elite just can’t let themselves mingle among the masses. “Please, Mr. & Mrs. Main Street…we’re ar-TEEsts.”
On the bright side, when has Star Trek ever been talked about for a major award? After the grim outlook for Trek throughout most of the decade, it’s great to see it return in full force and embraced by the main stream. I love the Twitter recap. Like or it not, that’s the pulse of the next generation. Did you ever even think Star Trek would be generating buzz at the same level as Harry Potter and Twilight with the younger crowd?
Star Trek Lives!
I thought that one the reasons the Academy expanded the Best Picture category to ten nominations was to get more main-stream movies in order to booster the ratings for the Academy Awards telecast on ABC. I heard that ratings were slipping in recent years, in part because no one cared about the movies being nominated (cuz hardly anyone saw them!). I also thought that this was due to Dark Knight being snubbed out of the category last year.
I doubt more and more that Star Trek will be nominated. It sounds like the Academy is just making it worse for themselves and they will have 10 movies no one cared about instead of five in that category.
THe SAG Nominations are out … generally a pretty good indicator of what the Oscar’s will be. Star Trek was not mentioned for any top slots. But then neither was Avatar.
BUT, Star Trek did get nominated for best Stunt Ensemble. So that speaks pretty well for it considering the competition … there was some amazing stunt work in the Summer blockbusters.
I think it is pretty clear Star Trek will not be getting any major awards though. Those will go to more deserving films.