There didn’t seem to be any joy in Ben Affleck’s face when he arrived at the Critics’ Choice Awards last night. Every time the camera cut to him he had the sad eyes. And it seemed like the entire room felt sorry for him too. As you know, earlier in the day, Affleck was left off the list, along with Kathryn Bigelow, when the Academy announced the Oscar nominations. Many people feel that Ben deserved to be included. And it certainly seemed like his peers rallied around him last night. People were extra huggy; Bradley Cooper of all people, high from the Oscar and Critics’ Choice acknowledgment of Silver Linings Playbook, seemed to be bro-down consoling him. And then the standing ovation when his name was called for Best Director...
Look, I liked Argo too. A lot. But a standing ovation for Ben Affleck? It was a pity ovation. It was a pity ovation because of what happened that morning ...which is actually hilariously embarrassing -- that Ben Affleck is the recipient of Hollywood pity in a room full of Hollywood assholes, right? -- and, well, maybe it could work for him.
Affleck cheekily thanked the Academy and quipped that “this is the one that counts”. On the one hand it could be interpreted as bad form and ungracious. On the other it’s putting the Academy and its members on notice: you f-cked up.
They voted on the Critics’ Choice Awards this past Monday. At the time, most people assumed that Argo was solid for several Oscar nominations, and that Ben had to be one of the 5 directors. As criticism was continuing to mount for Zero Dark Thirty, the Critics obviously decided to push their support over to Argo, thinking that they’d end up in line with the Academy...
But we’ve been talking about this crazy f-cking awards race and how tight it’s been and, well, since everyone thought Ben/Argo had it locked up, they shifted their votes to make sure their passion projects got in too, which may have ended up shafting Ben. And then they all woke up yesterday to “Ben got robbed!”, followed by Ben winning at Critics’ Choice, with a good chance at the Globes too, and remember, this is the Oscar voting period, they are watching, and you have to wonder about...
Argo Remorse...
And whether or not they’ll try to make up for it on their Oscar ballots. They can’t vote for Ben but they can vote for Argo even though they weren’t originally supposed to...
Lincoln is still definitely favoured, sure, and Silver Linings is making a move, and if they play this right, if they use this snub to their advantage, they could actually make Argo’s case even stronger.
