Photo: Paramount
A new Oscar combatant has stepped into the Colosseum. Over the past week, Paramount unveiled Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II to a handpicked audience of journalists and influencers, many of whom duly partook in a cherished awards-season tradition: the post-screening hype tweet.
If you’re unfamiliar, the process behind the post-screening hype tweet is this: When a would-be awards-contender movie screens, it sometimes has two different embargoes. There’s the review embargo, usually set a few days to a few weeks in the future. Then there’s the social-media embargo, which is often up as soon as the movie’s over. The upshot is that the thoughtful, considered reactions take a while to come in, while the most knee-jerk, hyperbolic ones are available immediately.
Years ago, I briefly wondered whether Elon Musk’s takeover of the website formerly known as Twitter would kill off this genre of writing for good. (I secretly hoped it would, because I have always been very bad at these kinds of tweets.) But I was wrong. Despite users fleeing the platform, the post-screening hype tweet lives on. Writers need something to publish to keep getting invited to screenings; publicists need something tangible to show their bosses. These tweets are simply too important to the awards-season ecosystem to ever die.
As a creature of the digital age, the post-screening hype tweet is a cousin of the Letterboxd review. However, their tone and function could not be more different. The guiding principle of a Letterboxd review is to seem as pithy and off-the-cuff as possible. For instance, someone there might write of The Substance, “i would fuck up those directions so bad.” It’s a tricky tonal balancing act to come off as the world’s wittiest and most disaffected cinephile, but thankfully, the goal of a post-screening hype tweet is simpler. One simply announces that one has seen the movie, and it is good. Like a haiku, it is the creation of a moment — ideally, it should be composed before the closing credits have finished.
The whole point of the exercise is to build buzz, but buzz notoriously features a low signal-to-noise ratio. Underneath the hype, it can be hard to understand what anyone’s actually saying. But I’m here to help. Using this week’s Gladiator II reactions as a guide, here’s a dictionary for common phrases in the post-screening hype tweet lexicon:
“Epic!”: The film cost over $100 million.
“A total spectacle!”: The film cost over $200 million.
“I’m buzzing”: The movie is better than Madame Web.
“This film has everything”: Every scene is properly lit and in focus.
“Sicko mode”: There are three shots that will be turned into animated GIFs.
“Totally bad-ass”: There are fight scenes.
“This is the kind of filmmaking that only [X] could pull off”: The director is a straight white man over the age of 65.
“[X] eats”: An actor has at least two close-ups.
“We are so back”: The movie is 20 percent better than the director’s previous film.
“A solid cast”: One person here will be nominated for a Golden Globe.
“[A list of wild-sounding things that happen in the movie]”: The viewer would prefer to list facts about the film instead of praising it.
“Lacks emotional punch”: A polite way of saying mediocre.
“The cinematic event of the year”: The movie will be released before December 31.
Breaking Down the Golden Globes’ Genre Placements
Last week, I mentioned how the intrepid reporters of THR had broken the awards beat wide open by revealing the category placements for nearly every film in the field. However, one major contender’s status still remained unknown: The Substance. This week brought news that the Coralie Fargeat body-horror film will compete as a comedy at the Globes, which means every title is present and accounted for. To celebrate the occasion, here is a completely objective, totally infallible ruling about which placements are correct:
Dramas correctly running as Dramas: The Apprentice, Babygirl, Blitz, The Brutalist, A Complete Unknown (I assume), Gladiator II, Maria, Nickel Boys, The Outrun, The Piano Lesson, Queer, The Room Next Door, September 5, Sing Sing.
Comedies/Musicals correctly running as Comedies/Musicals: Anora, Emilia Pérez, Hit Man, Joker: Folie à Deux, Kinds of Kindness, A Real Pain, Saturday Night, The Substance, Thelma, Wicked.
Comedies/Musicals erroneously running as Dramas: Conclave, Hard Truths.
Dramas erroneously running as Comedies/Musicals: A Different Man, Challengers.
Movies I haven’t seen so I don’t have an opinion on: Nightbitch.
Oddly enough, while films in the past have sometimes tried to improve their chances by passing themselves off as Comedies or Musicals, this year, a number of female contenders might have been better off fudging the other way. As it stands, Demi Moore is probably not going to beat out Mikey Madison or Karla Sofía Gascón for the Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical trophy. Could she have had a puncher’s chance at the win in Drama? Similarly, Hard Truths is a borderline case — I laughed enough that I’d peg it as a Comedy — but I wonder if it’s running in Drama partly to ensure that Marianne Jean-Baptiste gets in. On the guys’ side, things have returned to their natural order, with Drama being far more competitive. But it’s not just about one night in January. Globes placement is also a way of positioning a film in the wider awards landscape, as you can see from unserious contenders (positive) like Babygirl and Conclave attempting to bolster their prestige bona fides by competing on the serious side of the ballot.
Oscar Futures: Does Conclave Have Mass Appeal?
Every week between now and January 17, when the nominations for the Academy Awards are announced, Vulture will consult its crystal ball to determine the changing fortunes in this year’s Oscars race. In our “Oscar Futures” column, we’ll let you in on insider gossip, parse brand-new developments, and track industry buzz to figure out who’s up, who’s down, and who’s currently leading the race for a coveted Oscar nomination.
