Tag: James Toback

A few hours ago, we mentioned James Toback’s allegations of “extortion” within the Academy’s doc branch being responsible for the failure of his film “Tyson” to make the Oscar shortlist. I wrote that the lack of detail provided made it difficult to know how seriously to take him.

As it turns out, the answer is: not very. Steve Pond has done a little digging, and come up with the following:

[The] Academy’s executive director, Bruce Davis, tells theWrap that Toback’s “concern was that one of the documentarians voting to pick the shortlist bore him a grudge and should have recused himself/herself from the balloting.”

The accounting firm, he says,” quoting PwC’s report, “has assured us that ‘no single voter was responsible for [“Tyson”’s] failure to make the shortlist….’”

Thus ends the very brief conspiracy theory. Sour grapes, anyone?

As I wrote yesterday about the Best Documentary Feature shortlist, I didn’t think the list’s much-ballyhooed omissions were indicative of much more than the rather particular tastes of one Academy branch. That, and perhaps an inclination to shine a light on worthy, but lower-profile, work.

Not everyone feels the same way, however — not least James Toback, director of one the most surprisingly slighted titles, “Tyson.” Speaking to the New York Times, Toback (a one-time Oscar nominee for his “Bugsy” screenplay) has made some rather astonishing insinuations about “irregularities” in the voting process:

At a time when the validity of even presidential elections is questioned, Mr. Toback said, “how is some tiny, dirty covert weirdly protective little group within the Academy going to be immune?”

Pressed for details, Mr. Toback said only that he had experienced something connected with the selections process, “which I put fully in the category of extortion that I did not go along with.”

(more…)