Overall, kind of hoped for more. It feels like another recency biased list of nominees like we have every year for the ICC, with very very few inspired picks. I wonder if that's due to not expanding the categories to ten like before, the low number of voters, or just generally people not having seen too many films outside of the big awards contenders, but I guess I was hoping with some time passing by there'd be more passion stuff.
Mainly I'm really sad by the lack of
O.J: Made in America which is one of the finest documentaries of all-time and one of the most thrilling films of the decade. Superbly directed and edited. I'm sure the 6+ hour running time scares people off, but I finished it in a day because I couldn't keep my eyes away. Watch ten minutes and you'll be hooked.
Swiss Army Man and
The Lobster missing is sad too, but the former was to be expected as I think it had just as many people who hated it as those who loved it (like me).
Lobster is definitely a shock as it was huge for us in ICC. Oh well.
And the lack of foreign films in general is really sad. This is one reason why I think keeping a Foreign, Animated, and Doc sub-categories to vote in makes a difference. It forces people to at least see one or two in each category so they don't have to abstain, and then it trickles over into other categories. But still,
Tower and
Handmaiden getting into quite a few categories more than makes up for it I suppose.
I'm sure I sound like a big ol' crybaby, but I'm just one man's opinion. Maybe our choice in winners will be more inspiring, and maybe 2016 is still too recent that recency bias still is in effect - 2017 sucked if you ask me, so I don't blame you for wanting to pretend it was still 2016
I'll be curious to see how the rest of these line-ups are throughout the coming years that we vote on.