Ten for the Price of Five

E here.  As noted, I’m a self-confessed Oscar watcher. I try to see all the nominated movies, and usually manage it. And yeah, I’m down with the dark indie films my sis has been decrying. I’ve no idea what this will do to the noble art of Oscar prediction, where guessing the nominees is always the best fun. It will probably take at least one season to know for sure if this is a colossal mistake or not. With that confessed, let’s get down to business.

Some years, there’s an abundance of terrific movies vying for the nomination, and other years, I wonder how they’ll scrape together five worthy films. So a list of ten? I’m dubious. And, like my sister, I think this has happened in the hopes of boosting the ratings of the Oscar telecast, which have been in freefall since they stopped nominating movies people have seen. (Notable exceptions being, of course, The Return of the King and Titanic.) And, of course, there’s the fact that the Oscars were invented to get people (like me, heh) to see more movies. Here’s Academy president Sid Ganis, as quoted and paraphrased by the AP:

Ganis said the broader field also might make room for documentaries, foreign-language films, animated movies and even comedies, which typically do not fare well at the Oscars.

“Everybody says the academy will never nominate a comedy,” Ganis said. “Well, maybe we will.”

I’ve got a few thoughts about this.

First, that they’re diluting the brand by picking ten movies every year, and not, say, allowing for the occasional overflow when a category is exceptionally full as the Golden Globes do. The National Board of Review starts out the year with their ten best films list, as do several other odd awards giving bodies. While I’m all for supporting merit, I don’t know – it just seems like too much. The Oscars should be about the best of the best, right?

And then here’s the big thing. Ganis says, maybe we will nominate a comedy. Well, says I , maybe you won’t. Look at the inclusion of the word maybe, for heaven’s sake. Maybe, in ten movies, one might be a comedy? What does that tell you about his attitude? And look at the Golden Globes Musical/Comedy category, while you’re at it. Do they nominated popular well made comedies like, I don’t know, Wedding Crashers or The 40 Year Old Virgin? No. And the latter was one of the best reviewed films of 2005. They nominate Sideways and The Squid and The Whale. And who saw The Squid and The Whale? I didn’t even see The Squid and The Whale. They nominate Ray, which is a movie with music in it, but is really not a musical. (If for no other reason than that the leads lip synch rather than sing; Walk the Line gets slightly more cred for that reason.) I just can’t believe that they’ll nominate movies like Wall*E or Hoop Dreams or Red – the best reviewed films of their years, but in categories (animated, documentary and foreign) which rarely if ever get Best Picture nominations. Now, the ten picture game might have helped The Dark Knight and Dreamgirls, but Star Trek? Despite being the only film actually worth seeing to come out in the last few months, I doubt it. Too genre, too tv, too much everything that the Academy wants you to know it’s NOT about. Too much everything – and much too good to be relegated to that ghetto, but there it is. Ditto for last year’s Iron Man. Does this mean that any of the remaining Harry Potter films have a shot at the brass ring? What, children’s movies about a wizard? Are you kidding? That would be quite a pleasant surprise. Why doesn’t a movie like Say Anything have any awards to its name? Because all the awards giving groups, not just the Academy, care more about genre and the appearance of seriousness than an individual work’s creativity, originality or perfection of form.

BUT – and there is a but – I can’t say I think that the Academy is all wrong. They’re just leaning too far in one direction – works that look like prestige films, rather than simply great movies. Maybe some good can be found in this. Maybe more adults will go to see serious films on serious topics. Many of the films I see simply because they are or look like they might be Oscar movies are films I wouldn’t see otherwise, films I’m so grateful to have taken a chance on. The Visitor was one of the hidden gems of last year, too small to be noticed by anyone without championing from the critics; with a slate of ten Best Picture nominees, it might have made the final cut and upped its audience even more. Gods and Monsters, Requiem for a Dream, American Beauty, Rachel Getting Married, Frozen River, Little Children, 21 Grams: I doubt I’d have seen any of them if it hadn’t been for that magic association, because all touch on dark subjects I might otherwise have left alone. Some of them – most of them – were movies I was convinced I’d hate and ended up loving. And then there are movies like Volver and The Last Samurai that I’d automatically discount out of dislike for a star or director. It’s much more rare that they actually don’t prove their worth (though I found Babel, Children of Men and Pan’s Labyrinth disappointing and VERY much pregnancy-unfriendly, which was hard to take for me that season).

The big studios used to make grown up movies with big stars and the star treatment. And by grown up, I don’t mean movies that are dark for the sake of darkness, like (in my opinion) Revolutionary Road; I think The 40 Year Old Virgin was actually more successfully grown up and less cliched, despite the incredible power of RR‘s acting. I mean movies that really try to say something about the human condition. Movies that try to be complex and nuanced. Now it’s chiefly the independent films that try to be grown up, and I’m glad they’re lauded for that, rather than trying to praise lame efforts like A Few Good Men. At least someone is doing it! I have a hard time thinking that the Academy’s real agenda isn’t simply to get people to see more movies (and hopefully like them). And I can get behind that, especially when they’re talking about small films that dare to be smart and original and exciting. But I also miss the days when a film like The Fugitive (a tv adaptation, no less) could be nominated along with Schindler’s List. And would I have been happy to see In the Line of Fire and Sleepless in Seattle, two perfect genre films from that year, nominated as well? You bet. Of course, 1993 was a banner year, and they aren’t all. But on the occasion that a mass market studio film turns out to be Star Trek rather than Transformers 2, it’d be nice if the Academy paid attention. So, is there room for all of us? To acknowledge both art and public taste? That’s what I’m hoping for – and I know it’s a lot. I’m hoping that having ten whole spaces to fill will allow the Academy to push us a bit out of our box, and also let them jump out of theirs.