Okay, so it's old news to a lot of us by now but the Oscar nominations this week were pretty interesting. Although it has already been written about pretty extensively I am excited that Dreamgirls didn't get any major nods. It is a movie I snoozed through the first thirty minutes of, and then had to witness audience cheering and clapping (a sensation I find oddly shameful) for the remaining couple of hours. It wasn't particularly innovative or thoughtful, and if anything it was calculated and inadequate in its attempt to cover an important period of time in broad historical strokes. So, even though my blogging wisdom told me that DG shouldn't be nominated I didn't expect the Oscar nominations to reflect that. More importantly I didn't expect them to acknowledge the best movies of the year as well as they did. I like the distribution they gave to a wide range of films--that's about how I would assess this year, and frankly it's a lot more interesting then a hands down frontrunner. Furthermore, I really like that Little Miss Sunshine got a big nomination because I think it is the most disarmingly clever film I've seen this year. It had a lot to say, and used a really discrete scenario to raise a lot of important questions.
As for why any of this matters (because we know movies don't need awards to validate them. i kid...i kid) I really believe that anytime the mainstream embraces a trend that is positive it's a good thing. In the grand scheme of things a nomination isn't so significant, but it does slowly chip away at studios desperate to push our pre-determined emotionally simple buttons.
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Rekha, I totally agree with you that the academy recognizing good (and better) films this year. You and I differ on our appreciation of Dreamgirls, I'm afraid, but I don't think it should be a best pic nominee either. But I'm still wondering about what you said about the studios not pushing our simple emotion buttons. And this brings me to Snakes on a Plane.
There was an article in the NYT about the Snakes phenomenon--basically that it was film making that is entirely catering to the aspects of popular film that are most memorable. You know, bringing Sam Jackson back for reshoots where he could drop more F-bombs on a plane. And more CG snakes were also added when the internet buzz progressed. But I think it's a pretty universal truth that sort of film making by committee isn't art and it isn't even good--it's just popular. Look at the Scary Movie and Epic Move franchises: they've made their entire livelihood by cribbing other films' most quotable scenes. And they're bad. Of course I'm only stating the obvious, but what I'm trying to get at is that the bad movies by committee are easy to spot, but I'm not so sure the mediocre ones designed to push our buttons are so easy to spot.
One need only look at the last NINE winners of the Oscar for Best Picture: Crash, Million Dollar Baby, LOTR: Return of the King, Chicago, A Beautiful Mind, Gladiator, American Beauty, Shakespeare in Love, Titanic. Of all of these, only Million Dollar Baby was a movie that wasn't entirely designed to pull at those pre-determined heart strings. Just like Meryl Streep mentioned at the Golden Globes, so many great films aren't being distributed widely and therefore don't create the buzz necessary to win awards.
So I want to ask the academy, where's Volver? In what universe is Crash a better film than Brokeback Mountain? Why are foreign language films corded off into their own category? The best films in the world aren't being made in the US and many of them aren't made in English. Except Apocalypto. That movie would suck in English, sanscrit, or made-up Mayan.
Completely agree about Oscar winners, which is what I think makes LMS a big deal. The Oscars aren't a great reflection of what's happening in film, but since they are a force in the American film industry I think it's worth celebrating when they do something right, and worth picking apart when they do something stupid (which by the way is almost always). Also, in FULL agreement about the best movies being made outside of the U.S. and non-English.
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