Home » Film & TV » Academy Awards » Banning Screeners and Lifetime Achievement Awards

Banning Screeners and Lifetime Achievement Awards

© Jason O'Brien

Here we are, late October 2003 already, and the industry is still abuzz over the controversy I reported in my last article concerning the MPAA's decision to stop the practice of sending out screener tapes and DVDs to awards organizations to stop piracy. Well, a lot has happened, including the cancellation of one of the major precursor awards because of this decision, so let's discuss this first.

Since I reported on this a couple of weeks ago, a number of major directors (about 140 of them) and actors (around 300 of them) came out to protest this ban on screeners, beginning to mount the pressure even more on Jack Valenti, the MPAA, and the major studios to reconsider their decision. As talks continued however, one major awards organization announced that they would cancel their next awards because of this decision. The Los Angeles Film Critics Association, which is usually one of the earliest precursor groups to give out year end film honors, made the decision to cancel their next awards since their members wouldn't be able to see all of the films because of this new ban.

"Unless there is a timely rescinding of the ban on screeners, LAFCA, with great reluctance, is compelled to cancel this year's voting on awards," the group said in a statement. Group President Jean Oppenheimer said that the decision was made after a long and heated debate this past Saturday. "Our members make every effort to see the films on the big screen," Oppenheimer said. "But the number of films that open from mid-November through December, is (huge) and it's almost physically impossible to get to everything." Oppenheimer said that is especially true if the critics want to see a film two or three times to firm up their choices, and often movies from the smaller, independent film companies are no longer playing in theaters by the time the film critics' association is voting.

As someone who follows the film awards season with great interest each year, I was shocked but not completely surprised to see the L.A. Film Critics take these steps as this uproar continued to grow. The New York Film Critics Circle is also now polling their membership to see if they want to do the same thing, as is the National Society of Film Critics.

And then today, the MPAA and the major film studios that created this ban, originally to try to stop piracy of movies, agreed to a compromise, but one which is not likely to satisfy everyone, particularly the critics groups. The compromise says that screeners will go out now, but only on VHS tapes, and ONLY to members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. So this still means that the critics organizations, Golden Globe awards, and various guild award memberships would still be denied any screeners to consider when giving their awards.