I’ve been meaning to write about my strong frustration with the Oscars this year, but due to my long wait, I was beaten to the punch. Not only was I beaten temporally, but this eloquent and cogent argument trumps my own ham-handed thoughts. The article nails it, and I wish I had been on it first. Nonetheless, since Oscar Sunday is one of my favorite days of the year, I want to share some thoughts on why I find the Oscar films disturbing this year.
First of all, let’s dismiss the usual Oscar dismissals of “the best film/actor/actress never wins” and “it’s all a big publicity stunt” because, while those criticisms are true, the Oscars still say a lot about Hollywood and Hollywood gives us most of our movies and movies are the most important thing in the world. Everybody checks in on the Oscars a little bit, even if only as a prop to support their own opinions (Gladiator was awesome! Yaw!).
Since I could really rant forever, I’ll try to limit myself to the best picture category that is especially irking me. My main problem is twofold: I don’t want to see any of the best picture nominees and two of the best films of the year, including the best, are not nominated. I will grudgingly admit that I haven’t seen a single best picture contender, as this does somewhat weaken my position. On the other hand, no one has to twist my arm to get me to a movie and you would have to nearly snap all my limbs to get $60 out of my pocket to see those five losers. The films are like an Oscar joke on a bad SNL. Four of the films are historical dramas where a good documentary or book would be just as entertaining (in the case of Milk and Frost/Nixon, these other forms exist). And Slumdog Millionaire looks like something you’d settle for if the Wong Kar-Wei film you really wanted to see was all rented out. Benjamin Button is written by the screenwriter of Forrest Gump and looks like it’s appealing for the same reasons, and I don’t need to see anything like Forrest Gump ever again.
But I’m beating around the bush. There just isn’t any reason to see these movies other than their nominations and the fact that they are being honored implies that these are the best things that films had to offer in 2008. It may seem a trifle populist of me, but my best films of 2008 are The Dark Knight and WALL-E in that order. You could look at that and say that I’ve forgotten the little film, that if the Academy doesn’t honor these smaller films we’ll be left with Paul Blart (for no reason, I want to note that replacing The Reader and Frost/Nixon with my movies would increase the number of people who had seen one of the nominated films by SIX TIMES!!!). It doesn’t change anything about small films to honor boring ones and potentially creates a backlash, further ghettoizing good small films to the far reaches of DVD and non-existence.
This post is too long, so I don’t want to talk about why those films are so good and instead just acknowledge that they weren’t nominated because one is about a superhero and the other is animated. If we only see our good works as this narrow slice, we are left with mediocrity on a year like this. I’ll watch these Oscars, but I’m frowning a lot.
Geez, what a downer I am! When is baseball season starting already?
P.S. Feel free to respond, I'm interested in comments. For all you readers out there...
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1 comment:
You raise a very good point here: every year when the Oscars roll around, I always see a couple titles that make me say "Oh hey, What is Crash? That sounds interesting."
I then see a handful of those films, and often feel the did not deserve the hype, or to be deemed one of the five best films of the year. However, at least I felt compelled to see them. I am going to come out and say it right now: I will never see Benjamin Button. I don't care what the circumstances are. I don't care if I run into Miley Cyrus at a movie store reaching for that title, and she says "Oh hey, you haven't seen this? You should totally come to my house and I will blow you for the entire time we are watching this film, I still will not see it.
I have never heard of the Reader, but I don't care much for reading. If I am going to a movie, it is because I like movies. I don't want to have to think about reading.
Milk looks alright. I have no desire to see it, but I have no compulsion to avoid it. If someone were to rent it and put it on my tv, I would watch it.
Same goes for Slumdog and Frost/Nixon. They obviously don't look bad, but they don't look terribly entertaining as well. And that is the point, right?
Heavy handed movies are not necessarily better than big budget action films; it is just a different category.
All French food, while being more "sophisticated", is not better than all Mexican burritos.
However, the Oscars always seem to ignore those delightful burritos out there. As I watched the Dark Knight, I was constantly thinking "How would I make this better?" Damn near every movie I have seen I have walked out thinking "Oh, they should have done this; this actor was weak; this plot point should be changed, etc."
During the two plus hours I was watching Batman, I did not have one such thought. Every character was developed, every shot was crisp and deliberate, and the only time I was not completely absorbed in the story was when I was thinking "Oh my god, I cannot believe how good this is".
Yuhp, there you have it.
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